John Henchy

I was bought up in Kenya, East Africa.

My Dad became the manager of a sisal estate and that was my first brush with Agriculture at around 11 years of age. Soon after he leased a small farm where we grew pyrethrum (a natural insecticide), wheat, barley and milked a few cows and sold the milk to the local Indians from which they made ghee (widely used in Indian cuisine).

Most of my education was at boarding school and as was the norm sport and extracurricular activities were encouraged to fill the gap, being away from home. Sport played a big part but I was also involved with the Young Farmers’ Club of which I was the chairman in the latter years. Young farmers gave us an opportunity to visit different farms and agribusinesses and of course the opportunity to get away from school at any opportunity was welcomed.

When I left school my parents thought that I should be exposed to how others lived and being of English extract suggested I go to England! My Mum had an uncle who worked at Ransome Sims and Jefferies in Ipswich, Suffolk, manufacturers of farm machinery, and he was able to get me enrolled in  what they called a special apprenticeship. It meant that we were exposed to all the different departments in the factory and it gave me a good rounding of what was involved with manufacturing, marketing and sales.

Sandwiched in-between my time at Ransomes I went to an Ag college in Writtle, near Chelmsford, and became a Graduate of the Institute of Agricultural Engineers.

When I finished at college I went back to Ransomes and worked in the technical sales department and as a result became very familiar with the joint venture they had with the Ford Motor Company where they made implements to complement the Fordson Tractor range.

My parents had written to me (no email in those days!!) to say that the future, for Europeans, in Kenya was not looking good so they suggested I look to settle in another country. As my Dad had a brother in Horsham, Victoria, he had made the decision he and Mum would come to Australia so it made sense for me to follow, I arrived in 1962 – I never did go back home to Kenya!!

Because I knew a number of the Ford tractor folk in England, when I was at Ransomes, and they knew I was moving to Australia they suggested that I contact Ford Australia because they were looking for young people, I followed that up and it was agreed that we should meet when I arrived in Melbourne.

We met in Melbourne, I think it was the Shell building in the City in those days, but was told that all vacancies had been filled – it was disappointing but as I had not seen my parents for a few years I decided I would go to Horsham where they had settled and see where it would take me.

I was offered a job with the International Harvester dealer in Warrnambool, McConnell Truck and Tractor as a salesman, so I hitch hiked down there and started.

It was not to last long because I was inexperienced but apart from that I was not impressed with the way they treated Customers so I left.

I got a job washing cars at Young’s Horsham Garage, the Ford car and tractor Dealer, and that lasted a few months before I helped out in the workshop before being offed a job looking after the sales of Fordson Tractors in the Wimmera.

The year was 1964 and the Super Major was a good seller and we did well. It was at that time that I first met Noel Howard when he offered me a job with the Company in Tractor Division. Because things were going well and I was enjoying the job I declined his offer.

Things continued to go well but in 1968 I was at a demo and was approached by a person from J.I.Case who offered me a job as a Territory Manager in Queensland. I moved to Toowoomba.

This was my first move into the corporate world and it was clearly different to retail. I’d moved from a relatively conservative area, in the Wimmera, to one which had two seasons in a year and machinery was higher up the shopping list and the volume of tractors and harvesters moving through was something that really hit me, it was vibrant and exciting.

My territory covered from Gayndah in the north, south to Inverell across to Moree and up though St George and Roma. A good variety of country covering broadacre cereals, vegies in Gatton to peanuts in Kingaroy and the start of cotton growing in St George.

After 12 months I was asked to move to Moree in NW New South Wales as the company store manager for J.I.Case. I enjoyed the return to retailing but the timing was not good. It was 1969 and wheat quotas had been enforced, country wide, and that caused all sorts of problems and put the kibosh on sales. Even the harvesting contractors were finding it hard to get work with the reduction in grain production.

My time in Moree was before the advent of cotton - when I was there they were building the Copeton dam but the land out west was still being grazed and not much machinery was sold, a bit different now with cotton planted from fence to fence.

In 1971 I was again contacted by Noel Howard who offered me a job back in Horsham as a Zone manager and given the time we had had with the problems with wheat quotas etc I thought a change would be nice so I moved back.

This job was relatively short in duration before I was asked to move to the Ford Tractor Operations office in Broadmeadows where I worked on various jobs from training to working in the marketing department.

In 1974 I was offered, and accepted, a position as manager for Western Australia and did that until 1981 when I was approached by Chamberlain John Deere for a similar role - after ten years with Ford I made the move.

I stayed with John Deere for over 25 years and had numerous positions, ranging from state manager, dealer development manager, national product support manager, division marketing manager for Southern Australia and New Zealand and my last position was product development manager for Australia and New Zealand.

The interesting aspect of this part of my career was that although I had responsibility nationally and in parts internationally with New Zealand, and I was based at all times in Perth. This arose back in 1992 when an earlier John Deere market manager made the comment that in future the trend would be for more employees to work from home rather than in an office, this was at the start of the communication technology evolution.

So instead of moving at every promotion I stayed put in the one place, clearly it worked well for John Deere because if it hadn’t I would have been moved back to an office. However the trend was confined to me, it seemed the era of working from home didn’t take off for many others in management.

My departure from John Deere in 2007 signalled a new era for me where I made the decision to change direction and have more flexibility in my life and spend more time with Claire, my wife, who had been living, all our married life with a fly-in fly-out husband!!!

It’s interesting that I started my career in the farm mechanisation industry at Dealer level and as I enter my twilight years I am again back working back with Dealers as the Executive Officer of the Farm Machinery & Industry Association of WA (Inc).

I look back on my life with pride having been fortunate to work in such a wonderful industry, as I tell people if I had my time again I would do the same thing.

One of the many highlights of my career was to represent the industry, though the TMA (Tractor & Machinery Association of Australia), which I considered a privilege and an honour, I was fortunate to be the Chairman for 5 years in the early nineties.

The future of mankind relies on food and without us, the farm mechanisation industry, productivity would be nowhere near what it is today, in fact if it were not for us agriculture, horticulture, viticulture  and all the other ‘cultures’ would stop.

It is an absolute pleasure to reflect on all the people I have met and continue to keep in contact with around the country and around the world, I can’t think of another industry where as competitors, we can have such respect for each other and enjoy each other’s company when work is done.

I plan to keep working in this industry while I believe I can make a contribution and it is a focus of mine to encourage as many young people as I can to be part of Agriculture directly or indirectly in Agribusiness. Agriculture is not only  about farming but about being part of the largest industry in the world with the vital responsibility of feeding the world.

What more noble career can one have?