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Contact: Jake Mortensen, 530-750-0150 x 114, jmortensen@agraquest.com
AgraQuest Inc. Launches Southern Team to Deliver Innovative Tools to Growers
Team to Focus on Unique Needs of Southern and Delta Growers
DAVIS, Calif. (Apr. 21, 2008) – AgraQuest Inc. announced today the creation of a new sales and technical services team serving growers in the Mississippi delta region and southern U.S. The team will focus on delivering unique fungicide and insecticide products to rice, soybean and cereals growers that provide effective pest control and improved yields and quality.
Chris Coombs, AgraQuest's VP, North America, will lead the group, which includes Sam Newsom, Sales Manager for the mid-south region (Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri and western Tennessee), Bill Thomas, Sales Manager in Texas and southwest Louisiana, and Sam Atwell who will provide technical service support.
"The team AgraQuest has assembled brings a wealth of experience to this market," said Coombs. "We have spent the past several years, through university studies and grower demonstrations, showing that SERENADE® and BALLAD® PLUS fungicides can provide growers with consistent performance and yield improvements, especially when used in a program with strobilurin fungicides."
Newsom, who comes to AgraQuest having retired from Syngenta in 2007, has more than 36 years of experience working with mid-south and delta growers as a sales manager for a variety of companies including Elanco, Jimmy Sanders Seed, and BASF.
Thomas joins AgraQuest following a 30 year career with Helena, serving as a branch manager at several locations throughout the South and as a divisional sales manager. Most recently Thomas served as the manager for grower cooperatives in both Louisiana and Texas.
Technical support for the team will be provided by Atwell, who has more than 40 years of experience in applied research, sales, and technical education in agronomy, entomology, and plant pathology. Atwell comes to AgraQuest after a 31 year career with BASF as a technical services representative. He holds a master's degree in Plant Physiology from Mississippi State University.
The team will offer growers a rounded portfolio of fungicides and insecticides, including BARITONE™, a Bt-based lepidopteran insecticide launched in March. The pipeline of new products also includes an insecticide with activity against sucking pests scheduled to launch by year's end, pending EPA approval.
"This new divisional team will be an excellent complement to AgraQuest's existing strengths," said Mike Miille, CEO-COO of AgraQuest. "The technology used to develop our products, and the team's experience working directly in this market, will provide growers with innovative and effective tools that have improved resistance management, residue, environmental, and worker safety profiles."
AgraQuest, known for its fungicides SERENADE®, SONATA®, and RHAPSODY®, recently launched its first bio-insecticide, BARITONE™. AgraQuest's broad pipeline of new products includes an insecticide with activity against sucking pests scheduled to launch by year's end, pending EPA approval.
About AgraQuest
AgraQuest is a biotechnology company that focuses on developing, manufacturing and marketing effective, safe and environmentally friendly natural pest management products for agricultural, institutional and home markets. The company sells SERENADE®, SERENADE® Garden, RHAPSODY®, SONATA® and BALLAD® fungicides and BARITONE™ insecticide in the U.S. market and around the world. AgraQuest received the Presidential Green Chemistry Award from the U.S. EPA for the discovery and commercialization of SERENADE. In 2004, AgraQuest received a Red Herring Top 100 Private Company Award and the World Technology Award for the Environment.
Certain matters contained in the press release concerning AgraQuest, Inc. are forward-looking statements which are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the receipt of EPA and other regulatory approval of the Company’s products, the success of the Company’s products in field trials and the timely development, manufacture and marketing and acceptance of the Company’s products in the marketplace.