Bill Hayes, President

Irrigation Direct founder Bill Hayes started in irrigation more than 30 years ago and hasn't stopped learning and refining his trade since. With Irrigation Direct, he has brought together three decades of experience to create a revolutionary irrigation company:

• Bill is an industry innovator who spots trends and responds accordingly. As former president of Automatic Rain Company, Bill purchased Plant Gro to make Automatic Rain Co. one of the first distributors to stock a full line of fertilizers, chemicals and grass seeds (it wasn't long before other major distributors tried to emulate this strategy). Under his stewardship, Automatic Rain Co. went on to purchase a seed and erosion control company, making it one of the first irrigation distributors to have a full offering of erosion control products. He orchestrated the merger between Automatic Rain Co. and Mesa Sprinkler, creating the newly merged Horizon in 1999, for which he was chairman of the board until Horizon in 2005 sold to SCP, the largest wholesale distributor of pool supplies. He is also the recipient of Hunter Industries' Trail Blazer Award.
• Bill understands irrigation and landscape contractors. Bill learned the business from the bottom up with warehouse, delivery and counter sales positions. He has acquired extensive understanding and knowledge of the operation and maintenance of sprinklers and controllers by building custom cast iron rotor orders for municipalities and handling shipments to factories for controller repair.
• Bill understands the irrigation and landscape supply business. Prior to becoming the company's president, Bill served as the Operations and General Manager of Automatic Rain Company and coordinated all purchasing with irrigation industry manufacturers.
• Bill knows what product designs work and which don't. Bill created one of the largest sprinkler rebuilding operations and one of the largest controller repair facilities in the nation. He founded ARCO PARTS (later R Co Parts).
• Bill has extensive experience in manufacturing high-quality irrigation parts. Bill created the first full line of generic after-market replacement solenoids still being sold today by The Source under the brand R Co. Solenoids. He also created the industry's first indexed reference replacement parts catalog, the first full line of generic after-market repair kits, and the Uni-Key Universal Controller Key ring, still being sold today by The Source under the R Co brand. He has manufactured more than 500 after-market replacement parts for most major brands of irrigation products.
• Bill has received numerous certifications: Advanced Techniques of Controller Troubleshooting and Repair from Rain Bird; Authorized Service Center Training from Rain Bird, Installation-Operation-Maintenance of CLA-VAL Co. Automatic Control Valves certificate; Backflow Prevention Devices; two-time winner of Rain Bird's Authorized Service Center of the Year Award; "Tech Master" status; Sprinkler System Design certificate from Rain Bird.
• Bill is an industry mentor and visionary. Over a seven-year period, Bill conducted service seminars for more than 7,000 industry professionals. He also created ARCO University, a 20-day extensive training for distributor personnel.