Agrium Inc. has made several management announcements. Gordon Miller has decided to retire from his current role as manager, West region, and as an officer of Agrium. He has been with the Crop Production Services division for over 37 years, and recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Plant Health Association. Miller also served on the boards of directors for the California Fertilizer Association, Western Growers and Tenkoz, and was also chairman of the Tenkoz board.
Agrium offered Bill Boycott an executive role, but Agrium said that for personal reasons he has made the difficult decision to leave the company due to an inability to relocate at this time. Boycott has held the position of Agrium vice president and president of Agrium Advanced Technologies for the past three years. Before moving to AAT, he was with the Wholesale division as general manager of Agrium’s Kenai Nitrogen Operations. He brought to Agrium more than 23 years of experience in operations management and business and commercial development in the United States and Canada.
Stephen Dyer will assume the role of manager, West region, within Crop Production Services, and will remain an officer of Agrium. He will relocate to Fresno and will report to Tom Warner, vice president, Retail distribution. Dyer has over 18 years with Agrium and its predecessor companies, most recently as vice president, Wholesale manufacturing.
The selection process for a new vice president, manufacturing, is still in progress, and a replacement will be announced in due course.
Andrew Mittag has accepted the role of senior vice president, Agrium, and president, Agrium Advanced Technologies. He brings to this role over 25 years of experience in business development, investment banking and corporate business. Most recently, Mittag held the position of senior vice president, corporate development and strategy with Agrium; president and CFO with the Rockland Capital Partners; and senior vice president, corporate strategy and development with Koch Industries.
Leslie O’Donoghue will assume the position of chief legal officer and senior vice president, business development. She will take on the added responsibility of managing Agrium’s corporate development and strategy function. O’Donoghue, who has over nine years of experience with Agrium, will maintain her executive responsibilities for the company’s legal affairs, internal audit, and environmental, health, safety and security, and corporate governance.
Apache Nitrogen Products Inc. has announced the promotion of Andrew Hunter to the position of vice president and chief financial officer. At the February 2009 board of directors meeting, he was recognized for his significant contribution to Apache’s success over the past ten plus years. The integrity of the company’s financial systems, quality of production, and inventory planning, as well as the success of the agricultural business, were key areas of recognition cited by the board related to his contribution.
BASF Professional Vegetation Management (ProVM) has promoted Philip Donahoo to product manager, responsible for industrial vegetation markets. He has served as a senior sales specialist for the BASF Turf and Ornamentals group for five years, and has seven years of experience as a golf course superintendent, where he was responsible for vegetation management. As ProVM product manager, Donahoo will oversee the group’s go-to-market strategy and business programming for industrial vegetation products. He will also manage aspects of business and sales direction, and pricing the products in the industrial vegetation portfolio.
The International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) has announced the winner of the 2009 IFA International Crop Nutrition Award is Dr. André Bationo, the director of the West Africa program of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which is based in Accra, Ghana. He is also senior program officer of AGRA’s soil health program. This award recognizes his contribution to soil fertility research and development in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly his efforts to promote research in the field of efficient, balanced, and environment-friendly fertilization.