VIDEO: Woman who hoped to meet Bill Murray gets hit by his golf ball
Does Bill Murray play in every Pro-Am or what? This “lucky” fan in the gallery wanted to see him play that day. She got more than she bargained for – check out the video clip for the full story and to learn more about Bill’s interest in golf pick up his 1999 book, “Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf.â€? It’s a great read!

New BASF team members to help customers grow better turf and plants

This week we officially welcome four employees to our BASF Turf and Ornamentals team: Product Manager, Missi Koenig; Sales Specialists, David Schell and Brian McCaffrey; and Senior Sales Specialist, David Maubach.

Koenig, Schell and McCaffrey come to BASF from the recent Whitmire Micro-Gen acquisition. Maubach is transitioning from another business within BASF to provide even more experience to our talented T&O team.

Here’s a rundown of how and where our new team members will help distributors, golf course superintendents, nursery and greenhouse growers, and lawn care operators select science-based, chemical solutions for growing healthy turf and plants.

To download the BASF T&O Territory Map for new and current employees click here, or place your cursor   over the map, right click and select “save target as� to download to your desktop.

Product Manager Missi Koenig
In her new role as product manager, Koenig will draw on her specialty market experience, to liaise with the Whitmire-line production group, communicate production demand and packaging, work on new development projects, and aid in product/positioning of the acquired Whitmire-line products within the BASF Turf & Ornamentals portfolio.

Sales Specialist Brian McCaffrey
McCaffrey, who served as Whitmire Micro-Gen’s horticulture national sales manager for mid-south and West Coast sales, will now cover South Florida in his new BASF T&O position as sales specialist.

Sales Specialist David Schell
Schell will join the BASF T&O technical team supporting the Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey area. Schell carries his experience as horticulture regional technical specialist at Whitmire Micro-Gen covering the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic U.S into his new role.

Senior Sales Specialist David Maubach
Maubach joins the T&O group from the BASF Pest Control business where he was a sales specialist in the Midwest for the past two years. He also spent more than 20 years with the crop protection business at BASF. His new territory for T&O includes Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, and North and South Dakota.

West Virginia GCSA seminar features Joe Vargas, Jr., Ph.D., Michigan State University Turf Pathology
BASF Sales Specialist McGee Poole and myself attended a turf seminar early last week in Wheeling, W.Va., offered by the WVGCSA. This was pretty much an all-day seminar presented by Dr. Vargas. This was the most in-depth seminar I have attended in quite some time. A tremendous amount of tangible, technical information was presented to the group on everything from sand top-dressing and the black layer to summer stress syndrome information.

Talked turf with The Ohio State University’s Turf Pathology and Weed Science staff and faculty
BASF Senior Technical Specialist Kyle Miller and myself met with The Ohio State’s Joseph W. Rimelspach, Extension Pathologist from the Plant Pathology Department, and Todd Hicks, Program Coordinator for the Turf Pathology Program. I very much appreciate Kyle Miller putting these appointments together and inviting me to take an active role in the discussions. These meetings help us to better understand all of the opportunities there are in working with these university contacts, both from the perspective from field sales and technical service. Next, we met with John Street, Ph.D., OSU Weed Science, and Deb Holdran, Research Technical Representative for Dr. Street and Dr. Dave Gardner.

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