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 September 2006 Dr. J.B. Penn joins Deere & Co. to head the company's new Office of Chief Economist, with responsibility for analyzing global macro-economic, policy and trade developments to help the company achieve sustainable, strong business results. He had most recently served as the USDA Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services. Prior to USDA, Penn was Sr VP and Mgr of Sparks Companies, Inc.'s Washington office for over a dozen years. Prior to joining Sparks, he was Pres of Economic Perspectives, Inc. Following Nitragin's acquisition of Agribiotics, the two have combined as one entity now known as EMD Crop BioScience, a subsidiary of Merck KGaA's North American EMD Group. The home offices and manufacturing facilities of the heritage organizations in Milwaukee, WI, and Cambridge, ON, will continue operations under the name EMD Crop BioScience. AGCO announces Robert J. Ratliff, Chmn of the Board of Directors, has retired from the AGCO Board effective August 15, 2006 when he reached the company's mandatory retirement age. Martin Richenhagen, the company's Pres/CEO, assumes the additional role of Chmn of the Board. Ratliff guided the company through a total of 21 acquisitions as it grew sales from $200 million in 1990 to over $5.4 billion in 2005. Jim Walker joins Case IH as VP of North American Agricultural Business where he will oversee all Case IH agricultural activities in the U.S. and Canada. Prior to joining Case IH, Walker served as VP of Sls and Mktg, North America, for AGCO. He has also worked for CLAAS and Deere & Co. Syngenta Corn and Soybean Seeds announces a new key account mgt team to increase customer service efforts for large, complex accounts. "Our team's goal is for Syngenta to become the customer's supplier of choice by helping them integrate the Syngenta portfolio of genetics, traits, seed treatment and crop protection technology to help their customers be more productive," says Jeff Taber, Head of Key Accts. Joining the Syngenta Key Acct Team to serve customers are: Kurt Sieren, who most recently served as Soybean Product Manager at NK Brand. Eugene Suter, who has held a variety of positions with Syngenta and legacy companies including Garst Seed. Dan Rowland, who has been in sls mgmt with NK Brand since 1994. Matt Schoper, who has been Area Acct Mgr since 2005. Joe Napier, who most recently was Southern Region Sls Mgr for Garst. Don Preusser joins John Deere Risk Protection (JDRP) as VP of John Deere Credit (JDC), and CEO, JDRP. Preusser will have responsibility for all crop insurance operations and will be a member of JDC's senior management team. Most recently, Preusser was Pres/CEO of Farmers Home Group, a regional group of insurance companies in Bloomington, MN. Before joining Farmers Home Group, Preusser served as VP for Grinnell Mutual in Grinnell, IA. The University of Guelph establishes North America's first distance learning agricultural communications diploma program. Much of the program will be delivered on-line, and the distance learning components will be augmented by three on-campus sessions. It also includes a project-based internship, where students will apply their skills within the context of an agricultural workplace. "The internship component will provide new opportunities for nourishing connections between students, professionals, employers and the university," says Owen Roberts, U of G's Dir of Research Comms, who will serve as the program's academic coordinator. Support for the program has been provided by a number of industry partners, including Ontario Pork, Pioneer Hi-Bred Limited, Syngenta Crop Protection Canada, GROWMARK Inc., and the Agricultural Adaptation Council. The Farm Credit System (FCS) celebrates its 90th anniversary of service. The legislation Pres Woodrow Wilson signed into law in 1916 created a system of 12 regional Farm Loan Banks that would grant loans to farm cooperative associations, allowing farmers to borrow from their local institution, using their land and improvements as collateral. Today, FCS has more than $108 billion in loans financing agriculture and its related cooperatives, rural homebuyers, small community water and waste disposal systems, rural electric and telephone systems and the export of U.S. farm commodities, the Farm Credit System is the oldest and largest financial cooperative in the nation. It is a network of 101 borrower-owned lending institutions and related service organizations serving U.S. agriculture and rural America. Golden Acres Genetics, Ltd., Waco, TX, announces the hiring of Jay Stidham as the new Dir of Sls. He was most recently with Mycogen Seeds/Dow AgroSciences. He also has worked with DEKALB, Lynks Seeds, and Crows. In his new position, he will manage the entire sales organization for Golden Acres. Also joining Golden Acres is James Baxter as its independent Sls Rep for New Mexico, west Texas and the Oklahoma Panhandle. He was most recently an agent with the Texas Farm Bureau in Canyon, TX. Previously, he had been with Monsanto and Agrigenetics. Arsenal Capital Partners announces the creation of Vertellus Specialties Inc., a specialty chemicals company focused on the manufacture of high growth, high-value products for the agricultural, nutritional, pharmaceutical, personal care and performance materials markets. Vertellus will combine two existing Arsenal portfolio companies, Rutherford Chemicals, acquired in November 2003, and Reilly Industries, acquired in September 2005, to provide a diverse array of specialty chemicals products. Timothy Zappala is named Pres/CEO of the organization. FMC and Bayer CropScience announce that Bayer CropScience has acquired the rights to FMC's insecticides discovery pipeline. The agreement enables Bayer CropScience to discover and commercialize new insecticidal compounds from the discovery pipeline. In return, FMC will receive royalty and milestone payments on the compounds and access to certain Bayer CropScience products for premixes with FMC products. "We are extremely pleased with our alliance with Bayer CropScience, an industry leader in the discovery of a broad range of new products," said Milton Steele, VP/GM of FMC's Agricultural Products Group. Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. announce the promotion of Darryl Stann to VP of Mktg with responsibility for marketing activities in all product groups. He was previously Sr. Dir of Corporate Reporting and Bus Development. Also at the company, Bob Felgenhauer is promoted to VP of Transportation & Distribution. He was previously VP of Mktg. AM Tweet |
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