“Being good at my job simply comes from passion. I just love shearing! I’ve always been sporty and active, so it’s like a sport to me because it’s such a massive physical challenge. Since it’s physically hard, it becomes a mental challenge too because you’re trying to control a live animal and that can take a lot of patience.
My love for the woolsheds started at an early age. I grew up on a sheep and beef farm in Havelock, where my mum introduced me to working in the woolsheds like she had done when she was younger. I grew to love the environment and worked as a wool handler when I was at school.
By sixth form, I was working holidays and weekends and even trying to get days off to go work in there! Back then, crossbreed wool was suffering from a lack of marketing, so I did a Bachelor of Commerce in Agriculture, majoring in marketing at Lincoln University.
I worked for a company in Christchurch for six months after I graduated, but missed the sheds too much and didn’t enjoy office life.
Luckily, a friend in England called, needing a wool handler, so I accepted the job and went travelling for two years. It was completely different to New Zealand. There are no shearing sheds in England – you shear outside on the trailer and you’re doing little mobs, moving around all day. I got to see a lot of the countryside.
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