On the Move

Jennifer Zurko

Ball Seed

Ball Seed announced the addition of Maximillian Epp to its sales team, joining as a Sales Representative in Niagara, Ontario, while continuing his role as an assistant to Max Epp Jr. Brenda Bliss-Cooling has decided to re-focus her territory in Niagara, which will allow her to help key customers continue to grow their businesses. This decision has created the opportunity for Maximillian to step into this new position and contribute to Ball Seed’s sales efforts.

McHutchison/Vaughan’s Horticulture

Jeff LaCourse was recently named perennial technical sales specialist for McHutchison and Vaughan’s Horticulture. With 46 years of professional experience working in the horticultural industry, Jeff has been involved with different growing operations in Texas, Oregon and California over the years. His background includes expertise in propagation, stock production, production planning, growing, technical support, product development, sales and marketing. Jeff has been responsible for propagation and stock production of perennials, ornamental shrubs and annuals for more than 900 different genera of plants. Prior to joining McHutchison and Vaughan’s Horticulture, he served as the integrated product team lead for perennials at Dümmen Orange.

Ryan Noack and Diana Shull were recently hired as sales representatives for McHutchison and Vaughan’s Horticulture. Both have significant horticultural industry experience over the years. Each one will focus on managing relationships with customers, serve as a key point of contact, attend industry events and share product knowledge to increase sales and educate others in the marketplace.  

Ryan gained his experience working at places such as the USDA-NRCS Plant Materials Center, Special K Ranch, Big Sky Watershed Corps, CyBIZ Lab and Montana State University.

Diana has 25 years of industry experience from working at Longwood Gardens, Brick Street Farms, Dümmen Orange, Center Greenhouses, Ball Horticultural Company and Wagner Greenhouses.

Profile Products

Edwin van den Nieuwendijk has been hired as the sales and business development manager for Europe and Asia. In this role, he’ll be focused on supporting the Quick Plug line of bonded growing media for plant propagation. Earlier in his career, Edwin held a similar role with Quick Plug prior to its acquisition by Profile Products in 2022.

Edwin joins Profile from Dümmen Orange. Prior to that, he was the managing director of Quick Plug EMEA, where he spearheaded efforts that significantly contributed to business growth. Edwin also brings valuable experience from his time at Anthura, where he became an expert in orchids. His in-depth knowledge of this category and other tropical crops has equipped him with the expertise to assist the top growers.

Edwin has extensive international experience and has traveled globally throughout his career. While his primary language is Dutch, he’s also fluent in English and Spanish, with partial fluency in German and Japanese. GT