Meet Ball FloraPlant’s Derrick Nagle

Photo courtesy of Ball

Ball FloraPlant, part of the Chicago-based Ball Horticultural, wouldn’t be the leading breeder of vegetative propagated plant varieties that it is today without the talented people working there. One of those talented people is Derrick Nagle, Ball FloraPlant’s international logistics manager.

As the international logistics manager, Nagle is responsible for all logistics activities for Ball FloraPlant’s vegetative unrooted cuttings supply from their production facilities in Nicaragua and Guatemala, as well as their supplier partner in Mexico. These unrooted cuttings include all Ball FloraPlant Spring Garden varieties, geraniums and poinsettias.

“The main goal of my department,” Nagle says, “is to deliver a quality unrooted plant cutting on time to the expectation of the customer.”

“It is a puzzle that I get to put together every week that balances our production capacities with customer expectations,” Nagle says. Another one of his favorite things about his job is building partnerships and relationships with others in horticulture.

Nagle earned his bachelor’s in operations management from DeVry University. He attended college after he had already started his professional career in logistics. Nagle says that working and going to school at the same time was challenging, but he had the benefit of being able to apply real job situations to his studies and vice versa.

When growing up in Texas, Nagle spent a lot of time with his large extended family, including going on vacation to the Gulf of Mexico beaches. Although he now lives in Illinois, Nagle says that he and his wife still travel to the Gulf once a year. While there, he gets to partake in one of his favorite activities: body surfing.

When not working, Nagle spends a lot of time with his 13 grandchildren, attending their sports games, cheer events and dance performances.

Nagle also enjoys long-distance running, which he uses as an opportunity to disconnect entirely from technology and recharge himself, instead of his electronics.

“I am a fairly anxious person,” he says, “but in the moment of trying meet a running goal, I can fully clear my mind of all other noise. It is recharging.”