NAMA announces award winners.

NAMA has named two award winners, the Agribusiness Leader of the Year and the NAMA Marketer of the Year. Both awards will be presented at the 2005 Agri-Marketing Conference, April 20-22 in Phoenix.

James Irwin, vice president, North American agricultural business, Case IH will be presented with the Agribusiness Leader of the Year Award, NAMA's highest honor. This award honors an outstanding leader in agribusiness, education, government service or other related areas.

Irwin is responsible for all activities related to the Case IH brand in North America which includes more than 1,100 dealers, field staff, marketing and training. He recently completed his 40th year of service with multiple generations of the company.

Irwin's mentors emphasized the "relationship building" aspect of sales, and he has carried that knowledge throughout his career. He uses his intimate knowledge of dealers and customers as his guide in decision making and foundation for leadership. His consistency in advocating for dealers and customers has served both as a cornerstone and guiding principle for the successes of the IH, Case IH and current CNH businesses.

During his career, Irwin has championed the Case IH commitment to customer success through innovations that help increase grower productivity; an innovative field representation system; consistent dealership standards; and maintaining customer choice through product offerings in multiple brand lines.

Irwin also plays an active role in both the agricultural and local communities. He has been a four-term member of the FFA Foundation Board, a supporter and presenter for the Illinois Ag Leadership Program, an active member of the National Agricultural Equipment Dealers Association (NAEDA) as well as the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and an organizer of the Case IH United Way support.

NAMA Marketer of the Year. NAMA recognizes its active members with senior management marketing and/or sales responsibilities with the NAMA Marketer of the Year Award. This year, Rick Turner, president of Gustafson, LLC will receive this award.

In his previous role as vice president of marketing, Turner led the highly successful launch in 2003 of Poncho 250 and Poncho 1250 seed-applied insecticides.

The marketing team created a pull-through strategy focused almost exclusively on corn growers, even though the products would only be sold to seed companies. The product achieved almost a 20 percent market share the first year.

Turner's marketing team also developed a formula that would ship a minimum of 200 percent of the amount of product each company said it would use--and did it as part of a no-risk program. By doing this they insured there would be adequate product available. The result was the sell out of Poncho for the first planting season.

Rick Turner has been a NAMA member for nine years.