Powerplants recently added two new key sales people to our staff: Nam Ly, joins as Regional Sales Representative for South Australia & Western Australia, and Dirk Sprangers, has joined as a new Sales Estimator. Both positions were added as part of the company’s overall strategy to improve its customer experience and provide a more efficient estimation process for its greenhouse grower clientele. Powerplants mission is to provide better service to the grower by understanding what they want and need.
Nam Ly
Nam Ly’s position as Sales Rep for the South Australian (SA) and Western Australian (WA) regions enables him to employ his fluency in Vietnamese to look after growers in those areas of the country where the Vietnamese greenhouse growing population has increased over the past few years. Nam will provide a local presence and continue servicing Powerplants’ existing vegetable, cut flower and nursery growers in South Australia and Western Australia.
Nam moved with his family from Vietnam to Adelaide in 1984. As a teenager, he apprenticed as a cook, and then studied to become a chef at Regency TAFE School of Hospitality. He graduated in 1994 as a fully qualified chef. After many years working as a senior chef, Nam headed to Sydney to work as one of the chefs at the Homebush Complex at the Olympic Games in 2000.
After 16 years in the hospitality field, Nam was looking for a new challenge and a change in career. In a complete change from hospitality, he took on a role as a truck driver with EE Muir & Sons doing delivery and store work. As hard a decision as it was to switch careers, he decided to take the leap. Over time, he saw the opportunity that he could have input in the commercial growing field. He worked his way up in the company to a Sales Representative position, which enabled him to work closely with growers, focussing mostly on the joint cucumber project with Syngenta Seeds, running on-screening and demonstration/pre-commercial trials of new cucumber varieties with Vietnamese and Cambodian greenhouse growers in the Virginia region.
Over time, he made contacts with and serviced a vineyard, brassica, numerous greenhouse crops (tomato, cucumber & capsicum) and also number of vegetable and herb lines. As their servicing rep, he offered growers SAP and Soil analysis tests to help determine what was needed to improve their crop performance and yields for a better crop return. He serviced them with packaging, posts, coco slabs, drippers, weed mats, hydro requirements, chemicals and Muirs main product in their fertilisers. During this time he completed various training courses in agricultural chemicals, safety, handling and he completed an Agsafe certificate. He also attended courses in hydroponics run by Keith Webb & Domenic Cavallaro which provided training in cropping & steering techniques, PH, EC and fertiliser use, pest controls and other diseases in crops.
In his new position at Powerplants, Nam is looking forward to assisting his clients by customising their solutions and helping them become more productive greenhouse growers.
Dirk Sprangers
Dirk was brought on recently to help speed up and perfect the process of estimating costs for Powerplants’ customers. Throughout its existence, Powerplants has always taken great care in making sure that customers’ quotes were customized and specific to their individual needs. Ensuring that estimates were accurate was key, however often the process was slow. By dedicating Dirk’s position to the process, he’ll ensure that his customers not only get information they can rely on, but they’ll receive it in faster turn around time, enabling them to make quicker decisions and go to market faster.
Dirk was born and raised in Hoogstraten, Belgium, which is famous for strawberry growing. He grew up in the horticulture industry, as his father owned a greenhouse manufacturing company. He earned a technical degree in high school, and at the age of 16, he started working after school and weekends repairing pumps, electric valves, small controllers, and much more. Despite his age, Dirk has almost 20 years of experience in irrigation and climate control.
Dirk currently lives in Pakenham. His hobbies include running, mountain biking and motor biking and fixing motorbikes. His favorite part of his new job at Powerplants is the technical aspect.
‘The world is constantly developing and this makes it very interesting, and challenging,’ he said. ‘When you get the best out of your irrigation controller you can do the most with less water. It’s the same with a climate controller - get the most out of production and the best quality while using the least amount of energy.’
Dirk is looking forward to supporting his clients with design, calculations and quotes. ‘I want to learn even more - share the knowledge that I have and better my customers’ experience,’ he said. ‘Powerplants is the perfect fit for me. Their mix of technology and the importance of their customers’ experience with the company are completely in line with how I want to take care of my customers.’
