GIWA Board

Ashley Wiese owns and manages a family farming operation in Narrogin WA, with his wife Jo and a team of wonderful staff. Originally beginning his career as an accountant, Ash went on to pursue his passion of growing food on his property which has been in his family for four generations. He is a father, husband and entrepreneur who is passionate about the pathway from the farmer’s paddock to the customer’s plate.

Ashley takes his responsibility as a custodian of the land very seriously , and is proud of the fact that he makes food with just his nurtured soil and the rain that falls from the sky. After a journey that has taken 8 years to unfold he is finally excited to be able to take Australian-grown quinoa straight from the farm onto the plate as part of the Three Farmers story (Profile courtesy of Three Farmers).

Tress Walmsely was appointed as the InterGrain CEO in 2012. InterGrain is a national cereal breeding business. Having joined the business at inception in 2007 as the first staff member, Tress played an integral role in governance, developing operating systems and building the company’s commercial platform.

Tress has over 20 years of agribusiness experience and prior to working for InterGrain, spent over ten years with DPIRD in a variety of roles. During this time, she played an industry leadership role in the development of the Australian grains industry 'End Point Royalty' collection system which has enabled cereal breeding in Australia to become commercially sustainable.

Tress is a director of Barley Australia and the Chemistry Centre of Western Australia and member of Wheat Classification Council. In 2020, Tress was a finalist Telstra Business Women’s award and in 2015 the WA Rural Woman of the Year.

Lyndon Mickel is a broadacre cropping farmer in the Beaumont region east of Esperance. Farming 6,000 ha with his wife, Nikki and his parents, they crop barley, wheat, canola and field peas.

Lyndon has been on the SEPWA Executive committee since 2005, and served as President from 2010 to 2012. He was recently appointed as the chair of the GIWA Barley Council, taking over the reins from long-time Chairman Steve Tilbrook. Lyndon provides business acumen and a grower's prospective to the GIWA team.

Previously, Michael was the National Leader Agronomy with Eurofins from September 2013 to January 2016. Michael was a Director of Agrisearch Services and Principal Plant Breeding and Biotechnology from August 2000 to September 2013 until the business was sold to Eurofins.

Michael has conducted and been in charge of canola field trials in WA and across Australia since 1992 for the majority of the canola breeding companies operating in Australia and has conducted or been involved in a number of canola agronomy system developments and other trait development projects. He was a member of the National Advisory Committee for the NVT (National Variety Trials) from 2004 until 2015 and was in charge of a number of canola NVT’s in NSW, Victoria, and WA.

Neil and Mary Wandel co-own Esperance Quality Grains, an incorporated company established in 2002. Together, they also own a farming operation in the Esperance area.

Neil spent nearly 12 years on the CBH Group Board (five as Chairman), part of his many achievements, included being a part of the 2002 CBH and Grain Pool of WA merger, and input into maintaining CBH's status as Australia's largest grain exporter.

Neil Hooper grew up on the family farm in Merredin before heading to Perth where he graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1988. Neil worked as an accountant in Perth until returning to Merredin in 1992 to join Byfields. Neil has been servicing farmer clients since that time.

Neil became a partner of Byfields in 1996 is a Certified Practising Accountant as well as a Chartered Accountant.

Even though Neil is now based in Perth he has maintained his close links to the farming community as his family continues to farm in the Merredin area. He has been a member of the Australian Association of Agricultural Consultants of Western Australia for several years and attends various Agricultural seminars throughout WA.

Neil is passionate about broadacre agriculture in WA and believes the agricultural industry deserves to be serviced by specialists and has focused on consistently providing this service to his clients over the last 20 years.

Despite growing up in the city, Pete Rees stumbled in to agriculture at UWA and discovered he loved it. He now has over 15 years’ experience working in grain trading, fertiliser and agricultural research. He currently works as a Grain Marketing Adviser at MarketAg. He still gets a little too excited when he thinks about how a grain of wheat in a Mukinbudin field can become part of a top quality dinner for a family in Japan and loves to play a part in the process that makes it happen.

Mark Narustrang is Principal Consultant and Director at Pivotal Point Strategic Directions (PPSD). He works with Boards and Executive in improving their business performance and resolving complex problems through strategic and commercial analysis and independent advice. Mark has worked with a number of significant agribusinesses in Australia as both a consultant and a senior manager, including 11 years at CBH, most recently as the Group Strategy and Innovation Manager. Mark has also worked in the Finance and Banking Industry. This experience gives Mark a well-informed, balanced, strategic and analytical view of WA's internationally focused grain supply chain.

Rob Dickie is currently the Government and Industry Relations Advisor with CBH Group. Prior to this Rob has 3 years’ experience at Joe White Maltings (Cargill Malt) in Adelaide, SA as the Malt Marketing Manager, Asia Pacific. Rob has ten years’ experience working with CBH Group in a variety of domestic and International grain marketing roles. Rob has previously worked for AWB and the WA Minister for Primary Industry; Fisheries.

Rob has a Master of Marketing, a Bachelor of Business (Agriculture), a Graduate Certificate in Applied Finance and Investment from FINSIA and has experience on a number of state and national grain industry representative bodies including the AOF, Oilseeds WA, GIWA, Barley Australia, GTA, GAFTA, UWA Institute of Agriculture Industry Advisory Board, and DAWR’s Grain & Plant Products Export Industry Consultative Committee (GPPEICC).

Kerry Regan manages the Grains Research and Industry Innovation branch’s R&D sections with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), which focus on improving grain productivity and profitability for sustainable farming systems in WA. The sections include Integrated Farming Systems (agronomy and farming systems), Crop Protection (disease, pest and weed management); Soil Productivity (management and amelioration); and Genetic Improvement (genetics, pre-breeding R&D and plant breeding functions). The team works with major funder GRDC, GIWA and collaborating institutions and agencies to ensure priority R&D is undertaken to deliver benefits to the WA grains industry (Source: DPIRD).