Tom has over 20 years’ experience in agriculture in a variety of roles from working on farm to consultancy. During this time, Tom has experienced the 2002 drought from an on-farm perspective and the 2006-09 drought and 2011-12 floods, 2016 milk price crash, 2016 wet conditions, the 2018-19 drought and the 2022 floods from a service provider perspective . While these events were very stressful, they provided significant experiences and learning opportunities.

Since 2012, Tom has been employed as a farm business consultant with Farmanco and became a director of Farmanco in 2015.

Tom has been working with a large range of farmers on an individual basis for over 15 years. The nature of these visits has varied from purely technical advice to whole business analysis, farm system changes and human resource management such as employment agreements, share farming arrangements and succession planning. In addition to dealing directly with individual farmers, Tom also frequently consults with organisations associated with the dairy industry as well as other service providers in the region.

Tom has managed and developed many industry projects as well as regularly facilitating farmer groups. He currently facilitates three Dairy Business Network groups. In addition to these groups, Tom also delivers other industry programs such as Feeding Pastures for Profit, Dairy Farm Business Analysis and Our Farm Our Plan programs.