Familiar country for new Gallagher Territory Manager

Gallagher’s new Canterbury Territory Manager Mark Maitland will already be a familiar face to many farmers and retail managers around the province, with few farm gateways and retail outlets he has not visited in past years.

Mark kicks off his new role replacing Chris Richards in early October, and steps into it from a similar position with dairy hygiene and detergent company Farm Guard where he has been for the past five and a half years.

When he heard that Chris’s position was going to become available, Mark says it was an opportunity too good to miss.

“Over the years I had witnessed and heard much about the Gallagher culture, and the effort that is made with staff – as a company it has always been very well regarded as a great place to work if you wish to be part of an exciting, interesting company.”

After completing a Bachelor of Agribusiness at Lincoln University Mark spent a short time working for Dairy Automation, also in Canterbury before making the move to Farm Guard.

He says he enjoys the close contact with farmers and retailers within the Canterbury province, and is looking forward to the wide variety of innovative Gallagher equipment he can offer his contacts in the region.

“It is early days and I am just beginning to get an insight to the technology and design that has gone into Gallagher equipment – there will be a different focus on different equipment depending upon the time of year which promises to keep the job particularly interesting.”

He said the wide range of applications globally for Gallagher equipment could be used for tasks as varied as containing zoo animals to keeping tigers out of Indian villages.

Here at home he has followed some of his dairy clients through some of the toughest farming years they have ever experienced. He believes they are starting to emerge from that as more effective, cost efficient producers keen to make the most of the gradual rise in dairy returns.

“If you can hang in there with them and help them through, then you hope to build on that when things turn better again.”

He says the fact Gallagher is a family owned New Zealand business has meant products are trialled in realistic commercial settings here, and get to market quicker and with fewer hassles than if they were bought into the country.

“It means farmers can get the benefits of that technology from conception to production, in relatively short time.”

Meantime Chris Richards is leaving New Zealand, but not Gallagher. He is setting out to Australia to take on the wide open territory of Queensland for Gallagher Australia.