On The Move

Jennifer Zurko

BALL FLORAPLANT

Leland Toering has been named Sales Manager for Ball FloraPlant, transitioning from his position as Sales and Marketing Manager for Darwin Perennials. Prior to that, he led inside sales and customer service at Ball Australia and as a regional Supply Manager for Ball Seed Company. Leland will replace Jason Twaddell who moved into a Ball Seed sales rep role for Ohio.

BALL HORTICULTURAL COMPANY

Ball Technical Services announced two new members of its team: Nick Flax as Customer Technical Support Specialist and Nathan Jahnke as Culture Research Manager.

Nick holds an M.S. from Iowa State University and comes to Ball from Penn State Extension, where he was a Regional Specialist and an active contributor to the e-Gro Online Resources. Nick will lead in providing technical solutions for Ball’s customers and drive actionable solutions throughout the supply chain. He will be responsible for quality assessment of vegetative inputs and identifying issues impacting customers. He will also lead customer technical contacts, from calls and emails to text and digital touchpoints. In addition, Nick will provide multimedia support for Ball Tech On Demand and Tech At A Distance platforms.

Nathan, a 2014 Ball intern, recently completed his Horticulture Ph.D. from North Carolina State University. Nathan will focus on investigating technical and cultural solutions for customers and suppliers that require a research-based approach. Nathan will identify challenges impacting commercial growers and create innovative solutions to improve yields and reduce production costs. With a focus on research, Nathan will interact with a wide range of internal and external partners.

BALL SEED

After serving customers in Ohio for over 23 years, Chris Bernacchi is retiring and transitioning his sales territory over to Jason Twaddell, who has accepted the position of Ball Seed Sales Representative in Ohio. Jason has spent the previous six years with Ball FloraPlant as Sales Manager and Territory Manager for the Northeast and Great Lakes. Prior to joining Ball, he was the General Manager of Timbuk Farms in Granville, Ohio. A Kansas State horticulture graduate, Jason has spent his career in our industry, has served on the AmericanHort board and is active in other industry groups.

Mary Kannor has also been named as a Ball Seed Sales Representative for California. She comes to Ball Seed from her family’s operation in Riverside, California, Louie’s Nursery, a retail grower, where she’s worked for the last 25 years and been a part of management with her brother for the last 10 years.

BIOTHERM

Rob Dimino has joined BioTherm as the regional sales representative for the Mountain Region. Based in Colorado, Rob will serve customers from Arizona to Texas and north to Idaho and the Dakotas. Rob was most recently a Territory Manager for Agrify Corp, selling turnkey, fully integrated vertical farming units. Previously, he served as Head ROI Specialist and Sales Manager for Cannabis Big Data. He has a background in compliance education with experience at Corpedia, Click 4 Compliance and Thomson Reuters, as well as consulting for private clients.

CERTIS USA

Certis USA launched a new website—certisusa.com—as a vital online resource for the company’s broad portfolio of biological products for use in U.S. and international commercial agriculture, nursery and greenhouse, and home and garden. Integrated into the revamped site is a unique tool that allows users to identify products by disease, pest, weed, crop or a combination of those factors. The new site is also platform-friendly and is optimized for use in the field on smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers. The new site also features key information for organic and conventional producers, and has many enhanced features designed to make information more accessible and convenient for users to experience while working in the field, including platform-responsive access to online labels and product support documents for each Certis product.

DÜMMEN ORANGE

Debbie Rempert has been hired as senior brand manager for the Dümmen Orange marketing team and will be based out of the company’s Naperville, Illinois, office. Her new responsibilities will focus on management, collaboration and strategy, including print, digital and sampling programs. She will help develop and maintain standards for Dümmen Orange and its brands including McHutchison, Vaughan’s, Dümmen Delta and Quick Plug.

Prior to joining Dümmen Orange, Debbie spent the past two decades as an account executive and marketing manager for Ball Horticultural and many of its companies, including Ball Seed, PanAmerican Seed, Ball FloraPlant, Selecta One, Darwin Perennials and others.

SIGNIFY

As Dominic Bouchard steps into the role of Commercial Leader for the Canada team, Henry Olson has taken on the commercial leadership of the U.S. team. Henry will focus on driving sales growth and increasing Signify’s U.S. market share in the horticulture segment, establishing new relationships with growers and developing a network of complementary strategic partners. He brings more than 12 years of experience in the horticulture industry, leading sales and business development teams, and operations at seed genetics startup Phylos Bioscience and seed licensing business Greenleaf. Henry has also held numerous roles at Syngenta, including overseeing strategic transformation for the flowers home and garden business, and successfully delivering sales and market share gains to turn around horticultural services.

Colin Brice has joined as Plant Specialist and will work with the team of horticultural specialists at Signify to design and implement LED lighting strategies in the horticultural segment. Colin’s primary focus will be supporting growers of food and ornamental crops.

Don Golema has joined the team as Key Account Manager. With extensive experience in marketing and sales of medicinal cannabis, Don will focus on supporting Signify’s core partnership network and increasing market share of Philips Horticulture LED solutions to licensed medical cannabis cultivation facilities. GT