Mark :
Mark is 38years old, and was born in Stone, England.
The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1983, when I was 10 years old, and settled in Wellington. After finishing school, I was offered the chance to assist for 3 months on a dairy farm in Matamata, and so began a career.
Throughout my career i have specialised in herds around the 200-230 cow mark, and have held positions from Assistant Manager through to Contract Milker/Lower Order Sharemilker. Each position has had its challenges, but all have helped define me as a farmer, and have built my skill-base ready for our current challenge as 50/50 Sharemilkers.
Over the years I studied various courses in Dairy farming and Agriculture, starting with the Certificate in Agriculture offered by Waikato Polytech back in 1993, and going through to Trade Certificate in Farming and Advanced Trade Certificate in Farming some years later.
Now, at 38 I am enjoying the next stage of my development, as the Daddy to Jessica Paige, possibly the most difficult and interesting role in my life so far!!
Nicole :
Nicole is 36years old, born in Adelaide,Australia, and arrived in New Zealand at just a few weeks of age.
After completing her education, Nicole moved to Auckland to persue a career in Communications and Marketing. During her career so far, she has held many highly regarded positions, and upon moving to the Waikato to marry this particular farmer ( my lucky day!) she applied for and got, the position of Communications Advisor at the Mystery Creek Events Centre. After a couple of years and plenty of overtime in the weeks leading up to the National Agricultural fieldays, the opportunity arose to join the CRV Ambreed team as Product Manager, the position she currently holds and enjoys!
She has always studied, and has just completed a Bachelor of Communications extramurally through Massey University . Her final exams sat whilst she was 8 months pregnant with Jessica!
On our wedding day
Jessica Paige :
Jessica joined our family on the 16th of February 2010, a bit over 2 weeks late, but she got here eventually! We have the greatest of dreams and aspirations for her, as I suspect most parents do, and we look forward to breeding her a calf-club winner or two in the future!
