Stephen has been working in the Australian Dairy Industry in areas of Research, Development and Extension for almost 30 years.
Through the 1980’s Stephen was a dairy extension officer with the Victorian Department of Agriculture; working in the irrigated regions of Northern Victoria. In this role he was on dairy farms every day and ran over 600 discussion groups in his time, focussing on dairy cow feeding, reproduction, irrigation and pasture management. He was one of a small group of farmers and extension operatives who were responsible for the development of Australian dairying’s longest running and most successful change management/extension programs called “Target 10”. Stephen was also integral in the development of 8 producer driven Regional Development Boards across Australia who are now responsible for over $12m per year of investment in farm R, D and E.
In 1989 he joined Australia’s then largest dairy cooperative, Bonlac Foods Ltd as BFL’s inaugural Group Manager – Farm Productivity. In this role Stephen was responsible for leading on farm innovation across 3000 farms and 2.3 billion litres of milk. Achievements in this role included the introduction of Australia’s first comprehensive on farm milk quality payment scheme, including daily testing and ticketing and web based distribution of information to farmers. As well, he managed the pricing schemes of the company and milk transport and logistics within which he was responsible for the introduction of the first B double tankers, in line flow metering of on farm milk vats and the introduction of state of the art transport scheduling software.
In 2001 Stephen moved to the Dairy Research and Development Corporation (now Dairy Australia). He currently leads the Farm R,D and E investment team at Dairy Australia which is responsible for almost $60m per year of dairy industry investment across animal, plant, natural resource management and education/extension fields.
B Agr Sc (Hons) – Melbourne University 1977
M Agr Sc Genetics and Animal Behaviour Melbourne University 1981
Grad Dip Business Studies Monash University 1991 |