On the Move

Jennifer Zurko

North Creek Nurseries
Claudia West has joined North Creek Nurseries, located in Landenberg, Pennsylvania, as Ecological Sales Representative. A native from Germany, Claudia will be responsible for assisting landscape architects, garden designers, contractors, engineers and municipalities in selecting plant material best suited for sustainable ecological landscapes—including stormwater management, soil stabilization, landscape restoration and habitat conservation. Prior to joining North Creek Nurseries, Claudia served as a design consultant for Wolfgang Oehme/Carol Oppenheimer: Landscape Architecture, Organic Gardens LLC and Sylva Native Nursery & Seed.

Ball Horticultural Company
Gary Vollmer, a Ball Seed sales representative for the Western Washington territory, has accepted a new position as North American product manager and vegetative technical support for Ball FloraPlant. In his new role, Gary will be responsible for managing product assortment, trialing, sales training and customer technical support for the Selecta First Class line of poinsettias and carnations, along with other vegetative crops. Gary will be taking over these responsibilities from Stefan Reiner, who will be relocating to Germany this fall.

Craig Yoshida will replace Gary as the new sales rep for Western Washington. Craig, who grew up in his family’s greenhouse business in California, comes to Ball from the Fred C. Gloeckner Co. where he handled sales for the Western Washington and Oregon territories.

Biobest
Paul Koole has been hired as Biobest’s new biological control specialist for the British Columbia and Alberta territories in Canada, along with the Western U.S. For the past 30 years, Paul worked for his family’s business, Apko Nurseries, Ltd., focusing on biological controls during the last 10 years.

McConkey Co.
Western horticultural supplier McConkey Co. has hired Wensheng (Vincent) Li as its new senior buyer. Vincent will use his 10 years of inventory management experience to help improve service levels and the product portfolio for the company. For the last six years, Vincent was manager of international operations for All Natural Botanicals.

Dümmen USA
Brad Kunhardt has joined Dümmen USA as the company’s new marketing team leader. With an MBA in marketing from Boston University, Brad has many years of experience in advertising working for several Washington D.C.-based ad agencies, as well as operating his own firm.