Webb Fields has been named as an associate director for the Santa Gertrudis Breeders International, Kingsville, Indiana. Fields will work alongside SGBI executive director John Ford on association programs and ongoing activities while also representing the association at sales, field days and related activities. Fields will become executive director of the SGBI when Ford retires in April. Fields most recently served as manager of Texas A&M University Beef Center.
Thomas Marten has been named executive director of the Angus Foundation, St. Joseph, Missouri. He will be responsible for leadership and oversight of the growth and development of the foundation. He joins the foundation from the FarmHouse Foundation, where he served as director of the FH Excellence Fund. Marten has a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University and grew up on a diversified farm operation in Illinois.
Shelbi Knisley has been hired as director of policy for U.S. Wheat Associates, Arlington, Virginia. She previously worked five years at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Foreign Agricultural Service as a trade policy advisor for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Organization for Econoic Co-operation and Development. Knisley has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Texas Tech.
Chad Weigand has been named regional director for Sub-Saharan Africa, based in Cape Town, South Africa, by U.S. Wheat Associates, Arlington, Virginia. Weigand has been regional director since December 2018 and is replacing Gerald Theus, who retired Dec. 31. Weigand joined USW in 2009 as market analyst before he transferring to Mexico City as assistant regional director in 2011. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of San Diego and a master’s degree from Columbia University.
Nicholas Colglazier has been appointed as executive director of Colorado Corn, according to a joint news release from the Colorado Corn Administrative Committee and Colorado Corn Growers Association, Greeley, Colorado. Colglazier recently served as director of the Colorado Competitive Council, an affiliate of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. He grew up on a farm in Holyoke and has a bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University. Colglazier succeeds Mark Sponsler who was the organization’s CEO the past 13 years.
Certain private companies, nonprofits and tax-exempt organizations that lease equipment have been given more time in implementing new accounting rules, according to Ralph Petta, president and CEO of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association, Washington, DC. The Financial Accounting Standards Board recently announced the effective date of the new lease accounting standard, Accounting Standards Codification Topic 842 for private companies and nonprofits, has been delayed by one year with implementation beginning after Dec. 15, 2020. The delay will allow smaller organizations to get their accounting process in place while they continue to enjoy the advantages of leasing equipment, Petta said.
Americot, Lubbock, Texas, has expanded the company’s cottonseed breeding team with the additions of Laura Barham, Jody Butler, Stephen Follis and Luis Duran-Ortiz.
Barham has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Louisiana State University and worked at Stoneville brand cottonseed, working on cotton breeding and testing in the Mississippi Delta. She will be an associate breeder supporting Midsouth region customers and growers. Butler was most recently the southeast testing manager with Bayer/BASF and will be the senior testing manager and will support the Southeast region breeding team. Follis has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Texas Tech and was most recently with Bayer Crop Science where he was a research specialist. He will be the breeding lab manager supporting the western region breeding operations. Duran-Ortiz has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Campus and worked for Monsanto. He will manage a newly established breeding station with the goal of moving new varieties in the market faster.
American Vanguard Corporation, Newport Beach, California, has acquired four herbicide brands from Corteva Agriscience. The products are complementary tank-mix partners for a variety of primary herbicides used in the United States agricultural market. The brands are Classic, First Rate, Hornet and Python and the transaction includes end-use registrations, commercial sales, marketing information and finished goods inventory. A sales price was not disclosed.
BASF, Limburgerhof, Germany, and NRGene, Ness Ziona, Israel, have announced a research collaboration that includes the adoption of NRGene’s cloud-based artificial intelligence technology into BASF soybean-research projects. The GenoMAGIC technology will allow for more comprehensive evaluations to accelerate trait discovery and breeding across diverse crops. NRGene’s advanced multi-purpose breeding platform is a cloud-based solution for managing the full genomic diversity of species. It can analyze unlimited volumes of genomic data, enabling scientists and breeders to easily relate genomic sequences with beneficial traits, making genomic selection and trait mapping more productive.
