John Slaughter was born and raised on the farm in Missouri. His father was a biology and ag teacher and farmer and his grandfather rehabilitated farms after the dust bowl. When John asked his mother what he should do for a living, she told him he should work with “trees and people”. His mother’s advice led to California in the early 1980s where he enjoyed a long run as a field representative for the Burchell Nursery selling and servicing tens of thousands of acres worth of orchard trees, including the major booms of almond development in the Valley. Along the way a biology degree came in handy and he added plant breeding and variety development. After a stint at stone fruit giant Prima Wawona as head of genetics and R&D, the time was right to independently continue breeding and representing varieties.
Ben Slaughter started in valuation of rural properties in 2000, while finishing his ag business degree at Fresno State. He stumbled into the opportunity on the experience of having created digital maps of the family orchard properties in the days before GIS and Google Maps. After 18 years at a Fresno specialty ag shop, he left to start the agriculture practice at Colliers where he assembled the team. The team has touched over 30 states and valued over 60 individual farm and ranch asset types. Ben continues to innovate on systems, templates, mapping, and analytics in valuation practice.