Sabrina Hallman was contentedly following her career path as a school principal in Tucson. She had been in education for 27 years.

An hour to the south in Nogales, her father, Rodney Hallman, who was retired military, owned and successfully operated Sierra Seed Co. LLLP, which he had founded in 1989. Sierra sells to Mexican growers the seed bred by various seed companies.

In 2007, she suddenly received a phone call that her father was suffering from dementia. Beyond the human tragedy, the company needed a leader. The employees asked her to run the company.

Hallman was the first to say she knew nothing about the seed business. She asked for and received a loyalty pledge from the employees and asked them to teach her everything they knew. “I gave it a whirl,” she lightly recalled eight years later.

Among the first critical lessons she learned was why seed breeders don’t sell directly to growers. The answer is that the breeders can avoid risks associated with growing if they sell to distributors, such as Sierra. If a grower suffers a freeze killing $400,000 in seed, it is Sierra’s problem to resolve. Hallman said that sometimes there is a resolution. Sometimes there is not.

Hallman, who is Sierra’s president and chief executive officer, said she is philosophically like her father. “We are financially conservative and we take educated risks. But we gamble every single day.”

Making the business more challenging is the ongoing merger of seed breeders. “We used to have 30 to 50 seed companies. Now there are five or six,” most of which are represented by Sierra. Fewer vendors now offer much stricter terms. “You book on contract what you are going to sell in the next year. It is like looking into a crystal ball. Are the growers going to plant more cucumbers next year? Will there be a salmonella outbreak” that will kill demand-for — and planting-of — a certain commodity? “We operate as a bank with lines of credit to growers. Our seed vendors want payment in 30 or 60 or maybe 90 days. Our terms to growers range from cash-only to 120 days. In this business, you are as good as your word.”

Hallman said that Sierra has “managed to grow every year. In 2008-09, we grew during the recession. People eat no matter what. This is a good business when things are tight.”

In 2011, Sierra’s sister company, Invernaderos Sierra, S.A. de C.V, opened a greenhouse in Imuris, Sonora, to produce watermelon seedlings from Syngenta seed. This greenhouse is over six acres. Sierra owns adjacent land that could double the space. This fall Invernaderos Sierra is working for USDA phytosanitary approval to export its watermelon seedlings to U.S. growers.

Hallman doesn’t volunteer information on her personal accomplishments but the newspaper Nogales International reported that the Arizona Small Business Development Center Network named her as a 2012 Success Award winner.

The local trade indicates that she is a highly-respected board member for the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, which is based in Nogales.

Of FPAA, she said, “You have great people here who are all actively involved. In the last eight years I have seen a real focused, concentrated effort on being politically active and getting the Nogales message across the country. When we started meetings with leaders in Washington, DC, the (state political leaders) in Phoenix started paying attention.” She said that once “Phoenix was a country unto itself in Arizona but now they are paying attention to the work of FPAA and working with the Port Authority” in Nogales.

Furthermore, Hallman credits FPAA for its support of Nogales’ Boys & Girls Club.

Hallman is also on the Santa Cruz County Foundation board and raises funds for the local chapter of Zonta International, which focuses on improving the lives of girls and women in the Nogales area.