Page 6 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Dr Roger Campbell has been the public face of Pork CRC since 2005. Here, he presented to Pork CRC stakeholders in Melbourne in 2016.
KEEN readers of Aus- tralian Pork Newspaper will have noticed that this August edition is the first for many years without a Pork CRC Ini- tiatives column from Dr Roger Campbell greet- ing them on Page 3.
His final column, ‘Roger over and out’, was penned last month when he retired as Pork CRC CEO, albeit he’ll be doing some consult- ing work for the CRC as it moves steadily towards its wind-up and June 30, 2019 date with destiny, having injected more than $200 million into Australian pork R&D in its lifetime of achieve- ment.
Having headed up Pork CRC since its establish- ment in 2005, Roger has made an immense contri- bution to the Australian pig and pork landscape, while always painting a positive, practical picture of how well-resourced and targeted R&D would improve producer pro- ductivity and, ultimately, product desirability.
A 10-year association with Roger in my role as Pork CRC Communica- tions Manager has given me a special insight into the workings of a man I first met way back in the mid or late-1980s when he was a charismatic and inspiring keynote speak- er at a Watsonia Pig Day, which I MC’d annually for my then client, Wat- sons Foods (WA).
If my memory serves me right and the gig was mid-1980s, Roger would have been working at Victorian DPI’s Animal Research Institute at Werribee, or at Bunge if it was the end of that decade.
Anyway, back to the future.
I hope Roger, who I believe has a significant birthday in September, continues to share his scientific knowledge of all things porcine and his passion and enthusiasm too.
There’s no time like now for a good ‘Rog- ering’, as our indus- try struggles under the
Cant Comment by BRENDON CANT
weight of a mountain of pork.
Roger, no doubt, will methodically pick his way through the best R&D here at home and overseas, analyse it and somehow, in one form or another, share his views with those who need it most.
As Interim CEO of Pork CRC’s successor, Australasian Pork Re- search Institute Limited, he’s clearly not someone the industry wants to let go, and why would it?
In my 35 years in public relations, starting with 10 years with a big national- ly networked consultancy and the past 25 (yes, this month exactly) running
my own PR company, I can’t think of a cli- ent, at least not among the big field of scientists I’ve worked with, more attuned to communica- tion and more capable of helping deliver it.
Roger is acutely aware that research locked away in the confines of researchers’ minds or their institution’s labora- tory, or gathering dust on a library shelf, probably was never worth funding in the first instance.
That’s why he was the perfect ‘beast’ to kick start the Pork CRC way back in 2005, because the CRC ‘movement’ was then and still is all about supporting research that will produce an outcome that may well benefit its stakeholders.
The Cooperative Re- search Centres Program was established in 1990 to improve the effective- ness of Australia’s re- search effort by bring- ing together public and private sector researchers with end users.
Since then, more than 215 CRCs have been es- tablished.
Close interaction be- tween researchers and end users is its defining characteristic, including encouraging end users to help plan the direction of the research and monitor its progress.
Having worked in gov- ernment (Vic DPI in Australia, USDA in the
US) and private indus- try (Bunge in Australia, Ausgene in the US), Rog- er knew the ropes, espe- cially how to untie un- necessarily bureaucratic ones, while also knowing how to lasso funding and support from the private sector.
It seems to me that Roger is now the perfect fit for APRIL, at least in his role as Interim CEO, as APRIL is fully mem- ber based with an initial investment in 2018-2019 approaching $3 million.
APRIL’s vision, ‘Col- laborative, timely and ef- fective industry-funded and directed research focused on priorities and deliverables that ensure the sustainability of Aus- tralasian pork produc- tion’, sits comfortably with Roger’s, as does its mission, ‘Facilitation of high priority research programs and effective investment management to generate optimal re- turns for all pork indus- try stakeholders’.
On behalf of all those people in Australia’s pork industry, including many prominent names, who have contacted me to discuss their under- standing, gratitude and appreciation for Roger’s contribution to their in- dustry, I offer him a sin- cere big thankyou for the past and a big wish that he remains part of our future for a long time to come.
Our industry needs a good ‘Rogering’
In 2007, inaugural Pork CRC CEO Dr Roger Campbell (right) and inaugural chair-man Dr John Keniry checked out the FeedLogic automatic feeding system at DAFWA’s Medina Research Station during a Pork CRC Board visit to WA. A glob-ally recognised nutritionist, Roger made his views known then, as he still does today.
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Page 6 – Australian Pork Newspaper, August 2018
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