Sustainable businesses come from capable people.
From a ringer in the Gulf Country and Kimberley stock camps to cowboying in Arizona, British Columbia and Venezuela, I’ve spent my life around cattle and the people who work with them. From milking cows on English dairies and developing small farmers in India and Pakistan to managing large corporate free-stall dairies in Indonesia and running herd improvement in eastern Venezuela – my work has always been about cattle and people. Working across diverse cultures and communities is now one of my core strengths.
I understand both sides of the business: the dust and long days on the ground, and the pressure of performance targets and investor expectations. In recent years that’s meant leading large free-stall dairy operations and smallholder partnerships in Indonesia and across Asia – building local management teams, lifting productivity and meeting the expectations of corporate and private-equity owners.
My real strength is building capable people. Numbers measure performance; people create it. I help corporate cattle and dairy businesses in Australia and Asia develop the teams and systems that make performance sustainable.
That view was earned the long way round. I grew up on a North Queensland beef cattle property in the 1960s and started full-time work in 1979 with a large pastoral group, progressing to head stockman and caretaker manager on big Gulf and Kimberley stations by the mid-1980s.
Practical advice. Proven results.
What I learned early
The human experience is always the greater journey and I learned very quickly that the key to getting a good job done is having a good team with you.
Lenny “Potty” Foreman, my first head-stockman and a Gulf Country legend, was one of my earliest and most formative influences on my career. One late afternoon, as we rode back to camp, he said something to me that I have never forgotten:
Boy, it’s every ringer’s job to make a good horse…— Lenny “Potty” Foreman
it’s every head stockman’s job to make a good ringer…
and it’s every manager’s job to make a good head stockman.
Those words have never left me. Now it’s my turn.
Experience you can put to work
Training, tickets and languages
Education
- Diploma of Farm Management — University of New England, Orange, NSW (1989)
- Industrial Trainers Certificate
- Certificate of Proficiency, Internal Auditor / Assessor
Industry certifications
- AUS-MEAT (Authority for Uniform Specification Meat and Livestock) Non-Packer Exporter Certificate of Proficiency
- AUS-MEAT Beef and Sheepmeat Specification
- Accredited Level 2 Cattle Assessor — Computer Aided Livestock Marketing (AuctionsPlus)
- Artificial Insemination Certificate
Languages & community
- English — first language
- Bahasa Indonesia — fluent; Malay — proficient working knowledge
- Spanish — basic working knowledge
- Rotarian since 2006, and a three-time club president
Put over 45 years of experience on your team
Whether you're chasing more from your herd or moving cattle to market, I'd like to hear what you're working on.