The UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center completed another successful session of the Seed Business 101 course last week in Chicago, held in conjunction with the ASTA CSS 2015 conference.

The participants represented a wide range of companies with regional, national and international reach. Seed Business 101 is a one week course designed to expose participants to the five functional areas of a seed company – R&D, production, operations, sales and marketing and administration. The course, which is taught by respected seed business executives and industry experts, gives employees that are new to the seed industry a broad understanding of the major aspects of a seed company’s operations and cross-departmental knowledge of best practices for profitability.

This year’s participants included Neil Batchelor, Sevita International, Canada; Leah Beattie, DL Seeds, Canada; Eric Bertrand, Sevita International, Canada; James Clements, CNI, USA; Eugenio Cruz Balmaceda, Curimapu Seed Growers, Chile; Adam DeRosier, Land O’Lakes, USA; Davut Goktas, Agromar Marmara Tarim Urunleri, Turkey; Matt Helgeson, Albert Lea Seed House, USA; Cullen Hughes, US Agency for Int’l Development, USA; Jure Kolaric, Saatzucht Gleisdorf GmbH, Austria; Hannah Oh, Monsanto, USA; Robert Puhl, Bayer SAS, France; Daniel Samphir, Monsanto Canada, Canada; Laura Smarandescu, Iowa State University, USA; and Sherry Whitt, BASF, USA.

The next session of Seed Business 101SM Field Crops will be held September 12 – 16, 2016.