RiceCo USA

James Hines
Chief Executive Officer
Prior to founding RiceCo®, James worked in several capacities for Westrade and affiliated companies. He has over 25 years of experience in the industry and a background in accounting and business administration. During his 10 year tenure at RiceCo®, he has profitably grown the business, despite a challenging environment and several ownership tenures and has managed to turn the generic molecule (Propanil Technical) into a specialty product by continually innovating and developing proprietary mixtures and formulations.

Neil Robbins
Secretary and Director of Finance
Neil has been with RiceCo® since 2002 and has over 30 years of financial experience in the crop protection industry. Prior to joining RiceCo®, he was the Controller at Cedar Chemical Corporation for 7 years, and served as Plant Controller, over-seeing 5 production facilities for Cedar Chemical Corporation for 17 years. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting from the University of Memphis.

John Leeper, Ph.D.
Technology
Dr. Leeper has been leading research and development of new product concepts in rice crop protection and product support for RiceCo® since 2000. Prior to joining RiceCo®, he worked in crop protection for DuPont for over 19 years, where he spent significant time working on rice in Asia. During his tenure at DuPont, he established and managed a rice R&D laboratory in Japan.

Jennifer Wells, Ph.D.
US Marketing/Product Development Manager
Dr. Wells joined RiceCo in June 2010 and is responsible for industry relations, RiceCo Brand marketing, and database management. Prior to this role, she served as the Technology Manager for Horizon Ag in the CLEARFIELD rice seed business for over 10 years. Jennifer also worked two years as a field biologist for Syngenta in the California rice market. She has a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from the University of Missouri in Plant Science, and a Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas in Weed Science.

Judy Smith
Regulatory
Judy joined RiceCo in May of 2001 as a regulatory consultant responsible for EPA relations and state product registrations. She retired from Helena Chemical Company as Manager of Regulatory Services before becoming a regulatory consultant. Judy has over 20 years of experience in the regulatory arena.

Jim Magana, Business Development
Jim is in charge of creating and managing relationships with third parties offering crop protection products for rice growers. Prior to joining RiceCo®, he worked for DuPont's crop protection division for 37 years, during which he spent the majority of his time in Asia as the Asia Pacific Director and Business Manager for Rice Crop Protection.

Bob Scarlett
Global Supply Chain Manager
Bob joined RiceCo in September of 2011. He has over 20 years of experience in global supply chain, operations and QA/LeanSigma for companies such as, Timex, Johnson Controls, Solectron and Buckman Laboratories. Bob is also a LeanSigma Master Black Belt.