GIWA Board

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 appointed as the chair of the GIWA Barley Council, taking over the reins from long-time Chairman Steve Tilbrook in February 2015. Lyndon provides business acumen and a grower's prospective to the GIWA team.

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.

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).

For the last 8 years, Peter has worked for Pioneer brand seeds in WA. More recently, in Southern WA as Territory Sales Manager. He is also the Technical Lead for WA. The primary focus in these roles, is canola. He has a keen interest in farming systems, particularly soil health, crop nutrition and resistance management to support sustainable profitability.

Throughout this time, he has been involved with various industry groups.

Peter is currently a member of the GRDC Research Update Programme committee and he has also been a member of Albany Port zone GRDC RCSN since 2018.

He has cropping land near Kojonup. Stephen will bring his knowledge and current and prior Board membership experience to GIWA. As Chair of the GIWA Pulse Council he hopes for an increase in pulse crops to add diversity, nitrogen and other benefits to WA cropping.

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.

Eamonn brings a unique qualitative and strategic financial viewpoint drawn from his role with all shapes and sizes of business and his time growing up on the family farm in Dumbleyung.

Kerry Regan is Director of Grains Research and Industry Development Directorate with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), which focuses on improving grain productivity, profitability and sustainability of grain growers’ operations in WA. The R&D portfolios include Crop Science and Grain Production, Crop Protection (disease, pest and weed management); Soil Science and Plant Nutrition; and Genetic Improvement. 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).

Kellie is Manager of Government and Industry Relations at the CBH Group, liaising with local, state and federal Government and grain industry organisations to advocate for good outcomes for CBH and the grain growers of Western Australia.

Kellie has more than ten years professional experience in the fields of marketing, communications, events and community relations and prior to moving into her current role, spent three years in CBH’s Corporate Affairs team. Before joining CBH, Kellie worked within local government at the Town of Victoria Park for a number of years. Kellie has a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication and is currently studying a Masters of Business Administration at Curtin University.  

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.