Originally from Wauchula, Ben has deep ties to the City of Lakeland, where his grandfather, Horace Gibson, was a past mayor for the City of Lakeland and owned the Royal Crown Bottling plant. Ben’s father, Bob Gibson, grew up in Lakeland and was a past director of field representatives for Florida Citrus Mutual. As a 5th generation Floridian, Ben’s family has a long history supporting Florida agriculture as his great grandfather, both grandfathers and father were all citrus growers.
Ben has been a licensed real estate associate since 1995 and is a State Certified General Real Estate Appraiser No. 1740 since 1993. He has over 26 years of experience appraising agricultural properties. Ben’s real estate specialties include farmland, ranches, citrus groves, packinghouses, and various specialty operations, such as blueberries and dairies.
Ben obtained a BS degree in Fruit Crops (citrus) from the University of Florida. For eight years, he worked as an assistant vice president with Farm Credit of Florida. His responsibilities included originating new loans, special asset management (problem loans) and appraisals. Throughout his appraisal career, he completed appraisals on a wide genre of land types, such as ranches, professional offices, residential developments, citrus groves, warehouses, irrigated farmland, industrial buildings, conservation easements, packinghouses, and phosphate mining operations.
Ben is active on the Citrus Advisory Board of the Florida Cooperative Extension Service for Hardee, DeSoto, Manatee, and Sarasota Counties. He is a member of the Florida Farm Bureau, the Florida Association of REALTORS®, the National Association of REALTORS®, and the Heartland Association of REALTORS®.
Ben resides in the Bradenton area and covers the Florida West coast and the Central Florida areas.
App Social Blog Contact