Paris, France: Alastair Higgs has been promoted to the role of Europe Service Manager with Rain Bird.

In this new position, working from Rain Bird Europe’s office in France, Higgs’ responsibilities will include developing and driving forward service activities for Rain Bird across Europe.

“I am delighted to announce Alastair’s promotion,” said Richard Nelson, Global Sales and Service Manager at Rain Bird, an Executive Member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation.

“Alastair has in-depth knowledge of our irrigation technologies and with his vision and drive, will take us forward in this exciting new period for the Rain Bird European service team,” he added.

Beginning his career as a greenkeeper at Calcot Park in 2000, Higgs 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.

Higgs said: “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 efficiency of central control and cloud-based technologies and gain all the benefits that these offer.”