Meet Your Partners in Growth Series: Gil Luera

Gil Luera, Senior Sales Associate

Senior sales associate, Gil Luera is a solutions guy. And most often, those solutions are based on data with your soil in mind. Luera has been working in sales in the ag field his whole career and spent a good portion of the past decade in the agtech industry, where he developed a real appreciation for soil science and using data to make the best recommendations for the grower.

As a sales associate at an irrigation management company, Luera worked with large scale farming operations to collect data on the efficiency of their water, where their water was coming from, the depth of the wells or aquifer, the plants’ needs, and how best to replenish the water profile.

“We used sensor technology to collect and then analyze the irrigation data,” Luera says. “There were concerns with leaching and overall efficiency of water. The data helped farmers be much more efficient with their irrigation planning.”

Luera then moved on to a company that tracks the utilization and performance of field equipment. Again, Luera put on his sales hat and went to work reviewing data and to see if equipment skipped rows, doubled-up on rows, or presented with other issues that would compromise the grower’s efficiency.

“Ultimately we were reviewing the equipment data to make recommendations that would improve the efficiency of field operations, and improve their bottom line,” Luera says.

Luera, who grew up in Livingston, attended Cal Poly, where he earned a degree in ag engineering.

“While at Cal Poly, I had a professor ask us all who thought they were going to design the next best widget, and almost everyone raised their hands,” Luera remembers. “Then he said, ‘I’m gonna be honest with you – most of you will go into sales and the rest will go into management.’ I thought that sounded great! I’ve always been a talker and very social, so sales sounded like a good fit.”

Luera is not an office guy and ag sales allows him to be out in the field interacting with the growers on a daily basis. He prides himself on his ability to clearly convey a message and help growers be more effective, efficient and achieve goals.

Luera says he was drawn to Holloway in 2018 for a few reasons. First, Holloway has been a trusted partner of California growers since 1932.

“I would always see Holloway at the various ag shows and thought that it was really impressive to have a company be around for almost nine decades,” Luera said with a smile. “I was drawn to it and wanted to be a part of that legacy.”

He was also really impressed by the dedicated team at Holloway.

“Once I met Daniel [Terry] and the other management team, it seemed like such a great place to work,” he says. “All the people at Holloway are honest, good people, and here to serve the grower, and that’s how I like to work, too.”

Luera likes to get his boots dirty and work with growers to find the right combination of amendments to make their ground more productive. This includes going out to ranches and understanding the grower’s operations. He also relies on his knack for data-driven solutions by collecting soil samples and working with our agronomy team to analyze and monitor results.

With Holloway’s expansion into Grave-to-Cradle services, Luera is excited about the new arsenal of precision ag tools he can now bring to the grower to further improve soil health and overall production. At Holloway’s recent Spring Field Day event, growers of all sizes were invited to come out and see their redevelopment services at work.

“Our Field Day was very exciting,” Luera says. “The level of growers who were there to see the solutions we offered was very humbling. I am so excited to have these services for our customers.”

Holloway appreciates having such a thoughtful and analytical member of our sales team. When you talk to Luera, you can tell he really loves increasing production for growers and encouraging lifelong partnerships with his customers.