Stormin' Norm Fiegert

Friday Update.

It has taken a lot of collaboration but I think Norm has his story about ready to go.

Norm is a larger than life character who carved out a successful Ag Machinery business on the West Coast of South Australia. A man of good humour and determined mind there seemed to be nothing he wouldn't try and more time than not he succeeded.

I'm planning that to post Norm's storyon Monday.

Mike Hutton: World tractor man

Australia has a reputation of being a leader of agricultural invention, however as great as our achievements have been for the latter part of the twentieth century we benefited from the innovations of a global technological revolution. Service trainers and specialists from across the globe travelled down under to help us understand the machinery our local companies were importing.

Mike Hutton is one of those guys whose wit and intellect provided Ford Tractor Operations technicians with the best training possible. He tells us what he's been doing since his last visit.


My history since last visit to Australia in August 1990

My last visit to FNH Australia was in July 1990 to carry out service training on the 8630 – 8830 16 x 9 Powershift Transmission and an update on the then current Compact Tractors.

At the time of my visit, I was FNH Service Training Manager at the International Training Centre, in Boreham house located in Essex, England.

The job was very hands on and I had a team of four guys. Our responsibility as a department was to create training course material for all tractor and industrial FNH products and carry out service training at Boreham and all locations worldwide except for North America.

This visit was to be my last with the company, as much to my disappointment news broke of the takeover by Fiat Agri while flying between Melbourne and Perth!

During mid 1991 we started to prepare for Series 40 service training which was quite a challenge due to the fact that I had 4 new staff and the advance in technology in the new models.

November 1991 we started S 40 training with 6 weeks of intensive training for FNH company staff from around the world. This was followed by training for dealer staff both at Boreham and around the world.

The complete takeover by Fiat was announced in late 1992 after which redundancies were announced and I took very early retirement in December 1992!

Since then my ‘second’ career continued until 2008 when I retired!

1993 – 1995. I was a self employed trainer and continued working at Boreham, and then Basildon under contract!

1995-2001: I was an instructor at the local Agricultural College in Essex training FNH apprentices on a 4 year part time vocation course.

Also during this time I carried out work for Moffet Engineering in Ireland producing service training manuals for their range of truck mounted forklift trucks.

2001- 2008 I was approached to go back to work for the company, which by this time had become CNH!

During this period I worked as a self employed trainer preparing and conducting service training courses on tractor, industrial and CE products.

My projects included introductory training on the new Compact Tractor Range, CE Telehandlers, Manitou sourced agricultural rough terrain fork lift trucks and finally a new CNH rough terrain fork lift truck range.

Due to ongoing changes within CNH, much of the training materials preparations were taken away from Basildon and I took my final course in April 2008.

I now co-write articles for the Classic Tractor magazine and do part time work training on basic computer skills in the local library.

Otherwise I enjoy retirement with my wife and we have just been on our first cruise to the Norwegian Fjords!

Rob Bridger: My story and Ford Tractor Operations.

A couple of weeks back I posted a story by Rob Bridger. I edited the piece and by doing so made the story inaccurate. Therefore it was necessary to remove the post.

I'm grateful that Rob has taken the opportunity to add to his original piece and along with some photos to illustrate his experiences, his story takes you to the region he managed so capably. 

Today I'm pleased to post his story the way he wrote it.

Copyright Rob Bridger 2013
The moral right as author has been asserted.

My story and Ford Tractor Operations.

In mid 1975 Noel Howard our G.M. of the day asked me into his office for a talk. He asked if I’d like to go overseas.

At this time I was a Service Development Coordinator charged with the responsibility of encouraging our dealers to keep their workshops clean and tidy and more importantly to sell their service manpower profitably.

To achieve these ends I came up with several programmes that most zone managers and dealers participated in enthusiastically. Planned Service Improvement was one of them and Regular Planned Maintenance the other.

It was the latter that I was working on when I had my chat with Noel as I was communicating with our N.Z. people and Basildon quite a bit to get R.P.M. sorted out. So I thought he meant a week in N.Z. to finish up the job. No, he said, go and live in Singapore and work from there in the Asia Pacific Region. This proposition didn’t need much thinking about so he said he would arrange an interview with Paul Gillis one of many VIPs who visited from WHQ in Troy Michigan.

About a fortnight later I was summoned in to see Paul, a tall rangy Canadian guy. One thing he kept asking was what I knew about travel. So I explained to him that I was born and raised in Nyasaland (Malawi) in the middle of Africa and travelled by school train over a period of 8 years, for two days and nights six times a year to get to and from boarding school in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and that this involved four immigration checks in and out of Mocambique and a day in Beira, the port on the Indian Ocean. This experience also meant exchanging money from the two kinds of Pounds we lived with and the Portuguese Escudo so at an early age I became accustomed to handling several currencies at once.

Having finished high school at the end of 1960, I went and worked on farms in England, did four years at Ag. College and then in 1966 left Bird’s Eye, my student job, and started my first real job. I was hired by Mike Hutton with Ford Tractors as a Service Lecturer at their World famous training school at Boreham House. Anybody who is to do with Ford Tractors knows about Boreham.

Then in May 1968 I quit Ford and my wife and I left on a ship for Australia as ten pound Poms. Full board and meals plus travel half way round the world at the Aus. Government’s expense isn’t a bad deal!

In Merredin W.A., I sold green and yellow tractors for a while and then having been poached by the competition sold blue and grey ones for Wigmores, the Ford dealer of the day. As poaching was quite rife in those days Tom Nougher, the Western District Manager for FTO, approached me at the Dowerin field days and offered me a Field Manager’s job with the Company. So from September 1969 I worked out of our Fremantle office for a year or so until Harry Watson our General Sales manager transferred me to Broadmeadows to work with Frank Pitney as an Industrial Zone Manager selling the old 4500s and O.E.M. equipment. Vin Smith in Sydney and I were the first Industrial specialists.

By now the famous Clarence Reagan had been and gone back to Oakland California after turning the organisation upside down, sometimes for the better.      

Anyway, jumping from salary grade 7 to 9, I got the job as a District Sales Manager in the Asia Pacific Region and, as a family with two children aged 2 and 4, we arrived on the 25^th August 1975 and so began eight years of the best job I ever had with FTO.

The Asia Pacific Region was vast and to point out just the extremities gives one an idea of the size. Singapore, roughly in the middle was where our office was and where we lived, West-Sri Lanka, North- Bangladesh, Thailand, South Korea, East-Fiji, Tahiti, South-P.N.G., Indonesia and all points in between.

Because of the comings and going of people during the time I was there, I had a responsibility for sales in all these markets at some stage. However for the majority of the time Bruce Giddings and I split the territory in two sales areas and it worked well. We each had a service rep working with us, Brian Haydon and I worked together the longest.

We worked with distributors or dealers in all these so called developing or third World countries and the vast majority of our business involved winning tenders to supply tractors for various projects. These and any tractors included were funded by the likes of the World Bank, the O.E.C.D., the British Crown Agents, Aus. Aid, U.S. Aid and others. The funds for these projects were generally put into the recipient country through one of their several major banks who were involved with preparing and calling these tenders.

This was where we came in; to become involved with the people developing the various projects requiring tractors, and the banks who were to administer the funds to pay for the job. This needed a lot of talking and coaxing and in some cases helping to prepare the tenders to suit our tractor specifications.

Whilst business was conducted in much the same way in most of the territory I’ll go for more detail in Sri Lanka where I held a record of going there 50 times during my time working from Singapore.

In 1976, my first full year of looking after this market, we shipped 5 tractors here for 3.5% of the market, in 1979 after a lot of effort we shipped 895 units for 39% and there were another 311 units confirmed but on the stop list in Antwerp because of a hold up with the letter of credit. How come?  

It went like this.

Up till 1977 the country was ruled by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, a very left leaning organisation under Mrs Srimavo Bandaranayake. Everything was done through Corporations controlled by the Government. We had to try and do business through the Tractor Corporation with whom it was extremely hard to get on.

Then a general election was called and the United National Party under Junius Jayawardene came to power. Our dealer Dick Dharmadasa’s father had been a very popular Senator in this party in a former government and this connection proved invaluable during the next few years. During the Corporation days we did not officially have a dealer because the Corporations were supposed to do it all for us and all dealer agreements had been negated anyway. As soon as we were able in 1977 we reappointed Senator Apuhamy’s old company, Sathiyawadi Stores & Motor Transporters Ltd. with his son Dick as dealer principal.

Once the UNP came to power the World decided it could do business with these guys and money poured into the country. Many development projects that had lain dormant for years under the SLFP were dusted off and put into action. In our case this involved lots that needed tractors for cultivation and haulage, in most cases with a three and a half ton tipping trailer which our dealer used to build himself. The vast majority of our sales were the Ford 3000/3600 against the MF 35/135 who was our main competitor in this market and between us we shared most of the sales.

One of the jobs that proved very good for us was the 5 Tanks Project supervised by the Irrigation Dept, now no longer a Corporation. Some 2000 years ago the ancients made many large dams (Tanks) with sophisticated irrigation systems. Over time these silted up and the jungle took over again. Five of the largest tanks were selected for rejuvenation. Using our tractors and hundreds of labourers the jungle was cleared, the irrigation fixed up and rice paddies put back into production to feed the people.

  

Part of 100 for Irrigation Department, Sri Lanka

The Sugar Corporation, (for some reason this name stuck), was the only group who always bought the larger 5000/6600 from us and they usually bought in lots of about 30 units a time. 

One day Derek Bailey called from his export office in Basildon and asked if I could find a home for 311 x 3600s because a deal had gone bad in Pakistan and they were ready to be shipped. Naturally I was on the next flight to Colombo to see what could be done, normally our dealer did not stock his own tractors for retail business as it just was not usual in this environment. However it was time to change things.

Dick, his GM Flavian Weerasinghe and I went to every bank and finance institution in Colombo to find money to raise letters of credit to pay for the tractors and to arrange for local funds to finance locals into buying their own tractors which to date they had not done because they could not afford them. This was achieved and they arrived in early 1980, having ensured the tractor specification included the M4 automatic pick up hitch and the price was the lowest we could get.

311 tractors for retail arrive at dockside Colombo

One could go on and on about this country as it was when I went there which has undergone a war and many things since the 1970s.

PNG was another very different place. I’ve seen all the men from a village turn up and insist on buying the largest tractor on display, a 6600 instead of a 3600 which would have suited their needs far better, and then produce coins and notes to pay for it in cash! All this while wearing ass grass (a grass covering of the nether regions)!

Graeme Lawson, our resident dealer salesman, had some customers living in missions with no road access- only an airstrip. Tractors delivered in these cases were dismantled and many flights were made with a Cessna taking the engine then the gear box and so on. The rear tyres were squashed with a forklift and tied tightly with a rope so they looked like a banana as this was the only way to get the tyre into the plane with the doors open.

Loading a Cessna to deliver a tractor in PNG

  



 Squashed rear tyre for shipping by Cessna











A trailer cut into sections to allow delivery by air.












Other interesting snippets of life include-

In the Solomons I’ve been paddled up rivers in a tribal canoe to visit chiefs who wanted to talk about tractors.

In Kiribati, from behind our dealer’s premises, I climbed to the highest point in the country- 7 feet 5 inches!

In South Korea I’ve discussed tractor performance with potential buyers sitting in a park under cherry blossom eating strawberries and cream.

In the Philippines, a country of over 7000 islands, I trained dealer staff in all sorts of sales and product schools in many of these islands. We used to conduct a test at the start of a school and then the same test at the end. The improvement was pleasing to see.

In Saipan I sailed over the Marianas Trench, the deepest water in the World, to Tinian where the Inola Gay took off with the first nuclear bomb to drop on Japan. This country was so devastated by the battle of Saipan that after the war they aerial seeded tree seeds to stop erosion. Farmers were still ploughing up live munitions and causing damage to tractors and ploughs and people as well.

In Indonesia I water skied on Lake Toba, an extinct volcano, in the highlands of Sumatra.

In Dacca, Bangladesh the city was so gridlocked with traffic the only way to get around was by trishaw, those guys on the pedals deserved every rupee they charged in that hot humid heat.

Out in a boat off Tahiti with dealer Fred Siu, his son Daniel and two Frenchmen from the Board of Works we caught bonito and discussed TLBs. This account was generally worth at least 5 units a year. 

During my time in Singapore I appointed six new and very successful dealers or distributers responsible for our product throughout their countries. They sold hundreds of machines.   

In 1983 I moved to New Zealand for 2 years as the Tractor Manager where I had a great team of five working with me. We took Ford to market leadership by the time I left, even though every one of our dealers was also a vehicle dealer. We had 85 dealers from Cape to Bluff and I visited every one. Moving from a Direct market to an Affiliate was not easy and less enjoyable.

1985 saw me back in Australia and so ended 10 years on Overseas Assignment where I had more or less total independence and was trusted to make my own decisions and make sales in numbers nobody here would ever dream of.

These 10 years allowed me to meet some interesting and fascinating people and experience situations that I would not have had if I had stayed in Australia during that time. Selling Ford tractors in the Asia Pacific Region was hard yet enjoyable and educational too, thanks to Noel for putting my name forward and Henry for paying for it.

Ford Tractor Operations became Ford New Holland in 1987 and I performed a number of jobs in the sales, service and training departments until April 1991 when I was retrenched.

Since then I have been successfully farming my own property on the Mornington Peninsula, raising cattle and growing fresh cut culinary herbs for restaurants and catering companies sold through one distributor for 22 years.  

Photos from the time:

A perfect place to advertise - the tailboard of a trailer

Some of the 150 for Mahawelli Development Board Sri Lanka

 

Some of the 150 for the Low Lying Development Board 








Some of the 25 X 550 TLB for National Irrigation Authority, Phillippines













Preparing a rice paddy

And finally, me in Tahiti.



My Life with Ford Tractor Operations: Rob Bridger's Story

This week Rob Bridger has shared his story of his time with Ford Tractors. When I first read this I was amazed at just how much Rob fitted into a few short years and how the industry has now changed. Tractor companies still have people based in Singapore treading the same paths as Rob pioneered. Rob is still involved with farming and machinery and we the readers are richer for him telling us his history.

Today I have received a call from Rob pointing out that some of my edits have caused a couple of errors in the text of his story and made parts of it inaccurate. Therefore I have removed this post for the time being and over the next few days we will rework it and repost it then. I appologise to Rob and you the readers for this inconvenience.

The Tanunda Tractor Man

When I remember Geoff Schmidt I think of my cousin Doug Barton who came home from his apprenticeship training in Adelaide waxing lyrical about this bloke he’d met from Eckerman’s in Tanunda. Doug was excited about his new friend and after a week I think I knew as much about Geoff as Doug did. Their friendship grew during their training and I believe they even shared a couple of weekends together getting up to stuff seventeen year olds get up to.

I first met Geoff when I spent time with the Ford T&E demo team and spent two fabulous weeks with Eckerman’s of Tanunda. Geoff took me to demo tractors in most of the now famous vineyards. Places like Jacob’s Creek, Seppeltsfield and Angaston, I had one of the most memorable times of my career with Geoff and his friendship was valued. Geoff is not with us to tell his own story but thankfully his wife Maureen has graciously taken time to record Geoff’s life as a tractor man.

The Geoff Schmidt Glema Services story shouldn’t end here, as Maureen herself has played a big part in our machinery history and I can only hope that one day she too will tell more of her story.

 
Geoff Schmidt's involvement with Ford Tractors & Machinery.

 

From an early age growing up on a property in the iconic Barossa Valley, Geoff Schmidt had an appreciation of the needs of the grape grower and always desired to make life easier. He loved to tinker with old machinery and innovate where he could, using very limited resources.

Initially the property was run by horsepower alone, quite literally. But soon he convinced his Dad to buy a Fordson Major tractor. This revolutionised life on the farm and Geoff soon realised the potential of, and became fascinated by, tractors and all things mechanical.

Looking for greater challenges than were available on the farm, at the age of sixteen he started as an apprentice diesel mechanic at the Ford dealership, C.T Eckermann & Co., Tanunda.

Whilst completing his apprenticeship, an opportunity arose at Eckermanns for Geoff to try his hand at  sales, mainly tractors but cars & machinery also. He enjoyed the personal contact with farmers and grapegrowers.

In 1971 Geoff was offered an opportunity to join National Mutual Insurance as a sales consultant. Whilst the training undoubtedly assisted Geoff in his marketing skills, he soon found himself on the side of the road watching tractors working in the fields when he was supposed to be selling insurance.

 

Recognising that he missed his beloved tractors and especially the Ford badge on the front of them, he decided in April 1973 to start his own mechanical repair business. Newly married to Maureen and with their first child on the way, this was in retrospect, quite an ambitious, or some would say bravely foolish, thing to do.

We started out in a renovated old farm shed at Nain near Greenock, servicing all types of vehicles including tractors and trucks. Trading as Glema Services we built a clientele which included some of Geoff's previous customers and contacts from his time at Eckermanns.

In May 1975 we moved the business to a more central location at Kroemer's Crossing, Tanunda.
We added a new workshop.

Around that time Eckermanns had sold the Ford dealership to Rob Ladd Motors. Although at the time it was normal for the cars and tractor dealerships to operate as one, Rob Ladd Motors  were not interested in continuing the tractor side of the business.

Seeing an opportunity, we met with John McPherson, the Ford Tractors & Equipment rep. who helped  us obtain the  Ford Tractor Dealership in May 1977

Trading as Glema Services Pty Ltd., we were initially given a target of twelve new tractor sales for the first twelve months. We managed thirteen!  During 1980 a new showroom complemented the dealership.

That was the beginning of a great and long relationship with “Ford Tractors & Equipment”.

Many changes in the business occurred over the years. Mechanical harvesters replaced grape pickers and vineyard tractors needed to adapt also from their more traditional roles. Open air 2-wheel drive tractors with vine-dodgers gave way to 4-WD, air conditioned cabs with low-speed creeper gearboxes and spray equipment. Geoff was an innovator in matching combinations of tractor gearboxes, tyres sizes and P.T.O ratios to achieve optimum grape harvester efficiency.

The workshop also had to evolve to accommodate the increasingly sophisticated equipment.

We went through some very challenging times:

Company changes.  Ford Tractors & Equip became Ford New Holland  and then New Holland when Fiat bought the company.

Droughts came and went, vine-pulls and boom times for vignerons all were reflected in our business too. We were fortunately somewhat insulated from the vagaries of climate and economic fluctuations as our franchise area incorporated both vineyards and cereal cropping.

 
We were very fortunate to win some wonderful memorable holidays as incentives offered by the Ford Tractor Company. It was very exciting to be able to achieve these.

Due to Geoff’s ill health, regretfully we had to sell the business in 1998 to Ivan Limb who is still now trading as B.M.S (Barossa Machinery Services) in Tanunda, S.A.

In his retirement Geoff’s love of tractors continued, collecting 23 of various Ford models,

to play with.

 

Sadly, Geoff died in a car accident in August, 2003.

David Beak's Story

I remember when I first met David Beak I was sweeping the floor in my father’s workshop in Orroroo. It was after school and this sharply dressed young man driving a Mk Three Zephyr was extolling the virtues of carrying at least one new tractor in stock. Not being privy to the negotiations, I do remember tractors arriving and going to farms but not in the same numbers as the Chamberlains from my uncle’s business down the street.

David was polite and did his best to enthuse my somewhat cautious father to make more sales. For him it was a tough gig but he persevered with us and Fordsons waved a blue flag among the sea of orange spreading through the district.

 Our paths would cross many times in the future. David has taught many machinery reps the value of perseverance and hard work during tough times. An ally of small and large dealers while remaining a loyal company man is a difficult task but one he managed admirably.

 

Here is David's story:

 

Born 1940 in Birkdale, 21 Kms from Brisbane, I grew up in the Brisbane “Salad Bowl” small crop farming area, working on farms for pocket money.  Life was one great fun time. I wanted to be a RAAF fighter pilot, but this was scuttled after being told I was hopeless at maths.

By default, I then attended Gatton Agricultural College 1956-58 doing an Ag.Diploma.  It was during 1958 my future was locked and loaded, travel being the objective. 

A Ford Motor Company demo team of five guys, two semis, two tractors and implements and, a pink, blue and white Customline sedan visited the college.  This was the Australia wide travel job for me!  The demo team- Harvey Coombe, Les Glover, Les Graham, Peter Neuman and boss Frank Carr – painted a glowing account of the Australia-wide, all expenses paid job.   Sadly, the demo team did not operate the following year, however, in 1961 Ford were again hiring demonstrators.  At that time I worked for the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Station in Mackay where I started on a salary of nine hundred and sixty nine pounds per annum and paid ten pounds per week board.  I quickly utilized the inside running, viz. Ford tractor boss, Norm Logie, grew up opposite my grandparents in Greenslopes, so meetings were quickly arranged and I won one of the five positions being offered.  After six months with trainer, Lindsay Lamb, at a farm near Geelong, we five demonstrators could make Fordson Dexta and Major tractors virtually talk.  After that my travel involved all Queensland, central and southern New South Wales and western Victoria.

I then did an administrative stint at Broadmeadows plant, then Shell House in Melbourne, under Luke Lazarides, until mid 1962.  At that point each demonstrator was issued with an F250 truck, low loader trailer, Dexta tractor and several implements, to allow mobile on-farm demos.  My post was to South Australia to conduct demos over the following twelve months.

Then I was appointed Admin Assistant to John Blyth at the old Largs Bay plant and subsequently King William Street office in Adelaide.  Living in Area Manager Robyn Sexton’s half built house, nick named “Afghan Flat,” was an experience and a half.

In 1964 I was promoted to S.A. Product Trainer and launched (red-faced) the Ford 6000 (or Greyhound as it was called because it had no guts!).  Talk about being flogged by Chamberlain Countryman!!!  Other introductions were the Ford USA hay range and Horwood Bagshaw sourced “Blue Line” broad acre implements.  I was instructed to tell Gordon Abbott of Streaky Bay to choose – John Shearer or the Ford/Blue Line franchise.  Gordon’s instant reply was “Shearer” needless to say we capitulated.

1967 saw me transferred to north Queensland, replacing the Area Manager who was terminated for holding numerous champagne parties and bouncing cheques on a regular basis.  Lionel List was a tough but good boss and rode me mercilessly to sell Ford 2000 offset tractors (at twice a competitive price).  When the price was cut in almost half, Mareeba salesman, Neil Harry, and I sold fourteen of them to Italian tobacco farmers in two weeks.  We were almost drunk daily due to “drinking to the trac” with the new owners.

North Queensland was great but short lived with a transfer to Brisbane in 1968.  It was then that I earned the dubious title “the Red Line Rep” due to having to catch tourist buses on territory as a result of a one month licence loss for a traffic infringement.

 In late 1971, shortly after the loss of my father, I was promoted to Head Office in Melbourne as second in charge to Bruce “Jowls” Taylor in the market rep area that involved dealer placement and upgrading activities Australia wide.

1974 saw me back with John Blyth on advertising, and I enjoyed busting the myth that those who appeared in product brochures left Ford.  I appeared in every 7A Range tractor catalogue and on a worldwide Ford Tractor calendar.

In 1976, I was promoted to Market Rep and Business Management Manager.  I recall having one assigned and one leased vehicle and eating in the inner sanctum dining room with the Ford Australia elite as a career high point.  One function of this job was Director Secretary of the only Ford Tractor Dealer Development Dealer at Dandenong.  This involved an annual financial audit as per Ford Australia requirements.  In 1978 Ford, on my recommendation, sold Dandenong to operator Geoff Thacker at an agreed discounted price to enable the dealership to compete better financially.  The dealership prospered.

In 1980 there was a promotion to Southern District Sales Manager, and I stayed in this role until 1984 when the higher grade marketing manager position became available.   I applied for this job but missed out and decided that was the end of promotion opportunities so I accepted a job as Sales Manager with the Geoff Fowler/Russell Skerman Brisbane-based Ford tractor dealership, Agquip Metro.  For the 1985-year we won the top dealer sales for Australia.

I was then promoted to Agquip Metro General Manager in 1986 but that did not work out, so I went on the labour market that year.  I then spent 8 months managing the Dwyer Group Mackay Branch and in the tough year of 1986/87 brought the branch from a loss into profit before returning to Brisbane.

Then I wrote to over 20 agricultural companies applying for a job.  Only 3 replied and Massey Ferguson Australia offered me a job as Branch Manager starting in July 1987.   Unfortunately, due to industry problems (drought etc), and AGCO operating policies, the job was gradually down graded to what would become area manager, so I took redundancy in November 2002 and have lived the good life of retirement and overseas travel with my wife Pam since then.  That included 7 years part-time with Rob Wruck at North Pine Motors in Petrie doing the advertising.

In all the 41 years in the business I consider the Fendt Vario range of tractors, acquired by ACGO in 2001, to be an amazing advance in technology, providing huge forward steps in efficiency and quality engineering.  Pat Baird and I launched the 960 Vario model throughout north Queensland doing 50 kph demos throughout from Cairns to Mackay.  I’ll never forget the look on the faces of the farmers we took as passengers, when I told them I was going to change into reverse direction at 50kph with a flick of the joystick. North Queensland dry cleaners must have made a fortune during the programme.

The Australian travel afforded by both Ford and M.F. was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and provided an untold variety of farm and business contacts.

Every one of the companies I have worked for involved good times, great staff and some amazing characters and their activities.  I consider I could not have run a more satisfying race.  If there was a downside to the travel it was time away from home, so the support of a great family made it all possible.

There will always be an Ag Machinery industry, but I feel the types and numbers of opportunities will sadly diminish in Australia as time goes by.  However, top men will hold top jobs as usual.

Finally, an interesting statistic, in almost 24 years as a Ford Australia employee, I had 53 assigned vehicles and 11 leased vehicles – total 64.  The models and number plates of all 64 vehicles are recorded for posterity