Alastair Higgs has been promoted to the role of Europe Service Manager. In this new position, working from Rain Bird Europe’s office in France, Alastair’s responsibilities will include developing and driving forward service activities for Rain Bird across Europe.

Beginning his career as a greenkeeper at Calcot Park in 2000, Alastair joined American Golf UK in 2004, before becoming Head Greenkeeper at Donnington Valley Golf Club, and then Course Manager at Windlesham Golf Club. Joining Rain Bird in 2016 as a Golf Sales Specialist, he became Golf District Manager for the UK, Ireland and Iceland in 2018, managing and promoting the distribution of Rain Bird Golf products and services through trusted partners, providing support and guidance about best practice to end users.

“My new role widens my remit significantly and covers the full spectrum of Rain Bird products over a much larger geographical territory. Having been involved with golf throughout my career to date, it’s a welcome change to be dealing with a range of new sectors from agriculture to residential. It also allows me to manage and guide our team of talented service engineers and support the network of approved service providers to deliver after-sale Global Service Plans, installation start-up, training, software, and on-site services.

As our focus is increasingly software-centric, remote and on-site support is becoming much more important, not only for new installations but also throughout the lifetime of Rain Bird systems. An enhanced service offering puts customers in full control and gives them complete peace of mind, enabling them to maximise the efficiency of central control and cloud-based technologies and gain all the benefits that these offer.”

Antonio Farina has joined the Rain Bird Europe Golf Team as Area Sales Manager Golf. With a Master´s degree in Economics and over thirteen years’ experience in agricultural, turf and golf industries, he adds significant international experience and expertise to the growing European team.

Prior to joining Rain Bird, Antonio worked at John Deere in Italy as Financial Area Sales Manager, Turf Territory Manager and most recently, as Sales & Marketing Representative.

“I’m looking forward to fostering closer relationships with our existing Rain Bird customers in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey and also raising awareness of Rain Bird’s guiding philosophy, The Intelligent Use of Water™ among new customers and users. Given we’re facing a warm and dry summer ahead, water resource management and irrigation efficiency will become even more important.“

In his spare time, Antonio is a sports enthusiast and takes a keen interest in photography, astronomy and archaeology.

Gundars Vietnieks has joined the Rain Bird Europe Golf Team as Area Sales Manager Golf for Eastern Europe.

With over 11 years experience in the golf industry, his previous roles have included sales, project management, and marketing consultancy related to golf-related businesses.

Gundars says: “As my passion is irrigation, I’m really excited about joining the team at Rain Bird Europe. I know how important water efficiency is for golf courses; using exactly the right amount and in the right places. My aim is to help users to overcome challenges and get the very best from their irrigation systems”.