DANA (NZ) Ltd is co-hosting the second FWPA/DANA Insights and Outlook Conference in Melbourne on 5 October at the Sofitel Melbourne On Collins. Source: Timberbiz
DANA and FWPA are collaborating closely with John Halkett the CEO of the Australian Timber Importers Association (ATIF) on event topics. Mr Halkett is also the Conference Sponsorship Manager.
Conference organisers and speakers:
John Hakett
John Halkett, Managing Director, Forestlands Consulting, Australia
Mr Halkett is the managing director of Sydney-based Forestlands Consulting. The company has expertise in temperate and tropical forest management and forest-based industries. He is also the chief executive of the Australian Timber Importers Federation and a director of forest carbon company Leaf Carbon. Mr Halkett serves on the board of the Global Timber Forum and is a member of the NSW Forest Industries Taskforce.
Duncan Mayes, Vice President Group R&D & Innovation, Stora Enso Oyj, Finland
Mr Mayes is a highly experienced leader in the forest and bio-materials industry with a successful track record in both operational business management, R&D and Innovation.
He has worked in numerous roles within the industry and has successfully driven the launch of a number of new wood modification technologies and has been instrumental from a role of R&D in the rapid development of engineered wood construction products such as CLT and Urban construction systems.
In more recent years Mr Mayes has turned his focus to the development of Bio Composite materials and other high value intermediaries such as lignin and micro cellulose derived from components from the pulp , paper and wood products production.
He has an extensive global network in the industry and research community and is a regular participant in European and International consortia and standards working groups, and is a recognized industry expert recently appointed to the global expert council of the InnoRenew Centre of Excellence in Slovenia.
He has worked Internationally starting from his native UK to Sweden, Australia and Finland where he is currently based at the Stora Enso Headquarters in Helsinki.
Warren McGregor, CEO, PrefabAUS
Mr McGregor joined PrefabAUS as CEO in February 2015 with a professional background which includes management consulting in Australia and South-East Asia. His property focus since 2006 includes research and advice across most property asset classes for institutional, government, private and not-for-profit organisations.
Since 2104 Mr McGregor has been part of the project advisory team at Turner & Townsend Thinc. His interest in prefabricated construction dates back to 2010 and was reignited in 2014 when he undertook a review of the many advances being made in offsite construction. Mr McGregor holds Economics (Hons), Accounting, and Applied Finance qualifications.
Dennis Neilson, Director, DANA (NZ) Ltd, New Zealand
Mr Neilson is a director of the New Zealand based forest industry advisory, publishing and conference and industry tour organising company, DANA (NZ) Limited.
Hehas had previous experience in almost all aspects of the forestry and forest products sector working for Fletcher Challenge and regularly travels to several overseas countries to update his information base on the industry.
He has been a director of a eucalyptus plantation-owning company, and a wood export company.
Mr Neilson has been the author/co-author of 10 editions of the New Zealand Forest Industry Sector Review, the most recent in 2016.
More recently he co-authoured the 2017 Global Tree Farm Review published by Boston based RISI.
In 2017 Mr Neilson and DANA (NZ) Ltd planned and organised Conferences and Field Trips in Rotorua, New Zealand; Kruger National Park, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia; Argentina, South America; and co-organised a conference with RISI in London.
Robert Pradolin, General Manager, Frasers Property Australia
Mr Pradolin is an engineer by background and has been active in the property industry for more than 30 years most recently as general manager of Frasers Property Australia (formerly Australand).
During his time at Frasers/Australand, he steered it into the social and affordable housing space with the commercial redevelopment of two significant Victorian government housing estates and was also the driver behind the company’s foray into timber medium rise construction resulting with the company building The Green, Australia’s first 5 storey timber apartment building built with the use of traditional domestic labor.
This “domestically built” apartment building showed significant cost savings. He believes that the use of lightweight timber construction in the social and affordable housing space is a game changer and will improve the value for money proposition for governments.
Mr Pradolin believes that “housing for all – rich and poor” is not only a fundamental human need, but it is also in the long-term interest of the economy as it will reduce social service costs consequently he believes that social and affordable housing is economic Infrastructure.
Mr Pradolin is also on the board of the Property Industry Foundation and the HIA in Victoria and is a past board member of the Property Council of Australia, UDIA Livable Housing Australia and the Heritage Council of Victoria.
Dr Kate Ringvall, Country Manager Sustainability Retail, IKEA, Australia
Dr Ringvall has been working and studying in the Sustainability field for nearly 20 years across Australia. She began her studies in Sustainability at Murdoch University in the early ‘90s when it was called Population Resources and Technology, which evolved into Social Ecology and then what we now know as Sustainability.
Dr Ringall has worked in the Federal Government in Transport Environment Policy and Research focusing on a range of environmental concerns ranging from National Oceans Marine Parks, International Conventions on the Treatment of Hazardous Materials, to the economic costs of accidents and congestion.
She has worked as a Sustainability Officer in two WA local governments and in the WA State Police Department, roles that covered a vast array of sustainability topics and issues, and also completed many years as an academic and researcher at Curtin University in Sustainable Urban Transport Planning.
Dr Ringall completed a Masters in Public Policy at Murdoch University and her thesis investigated the indicators of success in Public Transport systems; and her PhD in Planning at Curtin University examined the integration of sustainability into new ‘Green’ marketed suburbs in Perth. She has recently joined Ikea Australia as the country manager for sustainability and has relocated from Perth.
Art Schmon, Partner, Forest Economic Advisors, Vancouver, Canada
Mr Schmon has more than 40 years of experience with engineered lumber products. He managed the market research, product testing, commercial development and market roll-out for MacMillan Bloedel’s $150 million commercialization of Parallam PSL.
Subsequently, as general manager of European operations for Trus Joist MacMillan, he managed the start-up and commercial development of that company’s European and Middle East Operations, introducing LVL, PSL, LSL and I-joists to the European market as well as the Middle East.
Since 2009, Mr Schmon and FEA principal Paul Jannke have co-authored The Quarterly Engineered Lumber Forecast. He also regularly leads multi-client and proprietary single-client studies for leading firms in the industry. Most recently, he was the lead author on FEA’s Global Outlook for Engineered Lumber Products, 2005 – 2021. This 609 page study devotes over 100 pages to the mass timber movement and new, potentially transformative industrialized housing technologies.
Mr Schmon has presented at numerous international conferences on the markets and technologies for engineered lumber products and is recognized as an expert in his field.
Ric Sinclair
Ric Sinclair, Managing Director, Forest & Wood Products Australia Ltd (FWPA), Australia
Mr Sinclair is managing director for Forest and Wood Products Australia Limited (FWPA), which is the industry-owned services company responsible for R&D investments, wood promotion and standards co-ordination, and statistics collection for the sector.
Over the last eight years, the company has substantially lifted support for forest and wood products, by both consumers and building specifiers, through its research, market development and promotion activities.
Mr Sinclair has broad industry experience in the forest and wood products sector and the food sector in the area of public policy, operations, corporate finance and strategy. He has a forestry degree from ANU and an MBA from the University of British Columbia.
Ian Tyson, CEO, Timberlink Australia & New Zealand
Mr Tyson is currently the chief executive officer and a director of Timberlink Australia and New Zealand, one of Australia’s leading softwood sawmilling businesses. He has also held a number of Independent board director roles in the not for profit and commercial sectors, and is a director of AFPA and the chair of the Softwood Manufacturers Chamber.
Mr Tyson has had a career spanning more than 35 years in material supply to the housing, construction and home improvement sector of industry. He has held a number of senior roles in some of Australia’s largest companies in this industry, including CSR, Boral, Smorgon Steel Group, Carter Holt Harvey, Bunning’s and Mitre 10.
He has held responsibilities covering domestic and international sales and marketing, domestic and international procurement, and business general management. Mr Tyson holds a Masters Degree and Graduate Diploma in Business.
Tim Woods, Managing Director, IndustryEdge, Australia
Mr Woods is managing director of IndustryEdge, Australia’s trade data, market analysis and intelligence firm in the fibre resources, wood products and pulp & paper sectors.
Mr Woods publishes IndustryEdge’s range of multi-client guides, research reports and associated publications in paper, paper products, pulp, recovered fibre and similar sectors. His commentary on the forestry and wood and paper products industries is widely read and available across Australia.
He also holds positions as: chairman of the Bio-Processing Research Institute of Australia (Monash University); An independent non-executive director of a financial services company; and, chairman of a not-for-profit employment and training service.
He has been a professional researcher, market and business analyst and consultant for more than 25 years, including formerly as chairman of an Australian superannuation fund.
Peter Zed, Chief Executive Officer, Omega Consulting, Australia
Mr Zed currently operates his own consulting business (Omega Consulting) and has worked within the timber industry for more than 40 years. He has previously been the CEO of ATP, group operations general manager for Weyerhaeuser, GM for CSR Timber Products and Softwood Holdings as well as holding senior executive forestry positions with both the Fiji Pine Commission and the SA Government.
His recent consultancy work has focused on strategic planning, resource utilisation, forest valuation, forest product manufacturing and market development.
Mr Zed holds an Honours degree in Forestry from ANU and has served on a large number of timber industry boards including FWPA, FWPRDC, Timber Qld, QTB, TRADAC, PTAA, NAFI and The Gottstein Trust. He has also served on the advisory committees for CSIRO and DPI NSW.
Field trip
On Friday 6 October DANA is also organising a one-day seminar and field trip covering the important Australian hardwood plantation industry, and the hardwood and softwood woodchip – biomass export trade. All details for this are on the Seminar and Field Trip website. For more information contact Julie Bell [email protected]
