Speaker Profiles

In March 2011 Warwick joined the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to head up the Environmental Information Services Branch where he has responsibility for developing and implementing the National Plan for Environmental Information – an Australian Government initiative to improve the quality and coverage of Australia's environmental information, jointly implemented with the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.

In 2008 Warwick joined CSIRO as the Director of the water information research and development alliance between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO's Water for a Healthy Country Flagship. Warwick also served as the inaugural Science Director (2002-2004).

Warwick has had a diverse career including leading the New Zealand dairy industry's environmental sustainability initiatives, in business development as Key Client Manager to Australian Government environmental agencies with Sinclair Knight Merz, and in information delivery as Technical Director of the National Land and Water Resources Audit (1998-2002).

Mary Munro has been working in human resource management and project management in private business for over ten years. Employed by various organisations including Ansett Australia, Mayne Logistics and Linfox Armaguard, she made a decision to transfer from Melbourne to north east Victoria in 2009 to use her skills to impact on natural resource management. Employed by the North East Catchment Management Authority in late 2009, she began as project coordinator and project Steering Committee Chair for the Australian Government funded 'Caring for our Country' Threatened Grassy Woodlands project. Holding a Masters in Business (Human Resource Management), Mary has enjoyed learning about the intricacies necessary for effective project and human resource management in the NRM context.

Dr Francesca Andreoni is currently the Program Manager for Strategy and Planning with the Namoi Catchment Management Authority of NSW.

Francesca has been working with the Namoi Catchment Management Authority in a variety of roles including biodiversity conservation and strategic partnership development over the last 4 years prior to taking up her current position. Her earlier involvement in natural resource management and conservation was in the Non-Government sector working with some of the major national conservation organisations on a range of national and state-wide issues.

Dr Hairsine studied agricultural engineering and worked on a wide range of farms on the Darling Downs to support his studies. His commitment to agricultural sustainability formed in this time.

His introduction to research was though measuring stream flows and calibrating runoff models with geomorphologist Mr Cyril Ciesiolka.

That was followed with five years of experiments and soil erosion model building at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia, with Professor Calvin Rose.

He also had short stays at Massey University and the National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory in the USA, where he was influenced by Dr Mark Nearing.

During 20 years with CSIRO, Dr Hairsine has measured and modelled sediment, nutrient and runoff from plot to catchment scales. He has tried to balance lines of evidence and struggled with the complexity of models.

In recent years he has added a focus of passing on research. Dr Hairsine has also developed a role in research management through the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Catchment Hydrology and CSIRO.

Tom Grosskopf is the director of Landscapes and Ecosystems Conservation Branch of the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water.

In this role, Tom has responsibility for:

• the legislative framework and policy development for native vegetation, threatened species and private native forestry issues;
• the delivery of innovative programs directed at improving the assessment of biodiversity assets, such as Biobanking;
• engagement of Aboriginal people in biodiversity management programs; and
• the design and delivery of programs to create the incentives for private land managers to protect and enhance important environmental assets on private land.

Tom came to this position after more than 15 years experience in the public sector, mainly in rural NSW. During this time, Tom worked in the primary industries, natural resources and environment agencies.

Tom has qualifications in earth sciences and environmental planning.

Simon Warner is Chief Executive Officer of SEQ Catchments Ltd. He is an experienced corporate manager with significant experience in a wide range of senior executive roles including Chief Operating Officer, and General Manager Logistics and Human Resources with Grainco Australia. Simon has also held Director positions with the Port of Brisbane Corporation, Bulk Terminals Australia, Australian Bulk Alliance, and Grainco Australia Limited Subsidiary Companies. He was Chairman of the National Grower Register.

Medhavy Thankappan is Director of the Science and Strategy Section within the National Earth Observation Group at Geoscience Australia. Medhavy's career in satellite based Earth observation spans 23 years. His remote sensing interests range from vegetation monitoring to detecting offshore natural oil seeps using data from space-borne platforms. He worked at the Indian Space Research Organisation prior to joining Geoscience Australia in 1999.

Dr Dale Watson currently leads the Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting unit within the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment.

Dale is an NRM professional with experience across government and in the private sector. His background is in GIS and spatial analysis with particular experience in the water sector. However, Dale's current role in DSE is in the development and coordination of more consistent approaches to monitoring, evaluation and reporting.

As a Project Officer with Regional NRM Programs, Pethie is involved in the on-going development of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement (MERI) system for Regional NRM Programs in Queensland. Pethie is actively involved in the Outcomes working group of Regional NRM Programs and works across several teams to support the development of outcome reporting.

From a first career background in the beef cattle industry, Ben's second career has included senior management roles in the finance, private equity and investment banking sectors as well as CEO, risk & sustainability roles in agriculture and the Not for Profit sectors. In the last ten years, Ben has held senior management roles for organisations based both domestically and internationally. His core expertise of identifying and developing the appropriate strategies, structures and funding processes for the development and expansion of young, growing enterprises and basing this on TPL and CSR criteria, will be put to good use as WetlandCare Australia expands its operations across Australia and the Oceania Region.

Ben's passion for all things wetlands has been forged from his previous life's involvement with the Barwon – Darling, Gwydir & Gingham Channel systems in NSW and the Thompson, Warrego & Paroo systems in Qld.

Dr Grainne Maguire is Manager of the Beach-nesting Birds project at Birds Australia, an NGO dedicated to understanding and conserving Australia's birds. She has worked on this project since 2006 and has overseen its expansion from Victorian-based to a Nation-wide project. Prior to joining Birds Australia, Dr Maguire studied the breeding behaviour, genetics and habitat selection of the Southern Emu-wren, an elusive little bird common to coastal heathlands, for her PhD at University of Melbourne. Grainne is passionate about Australian coastal environments and conserving the wildlife that are unique to these environments. The beach-nesting birds' project is one that provides a great challenge, with an interesting mix of field-based research, working with communities and human behaviour research.

Mike Berwick is chair of the Wet Tropics NRM body, the Regional Groups Collective, representing the 14 regions of Qld, the Cape York Peninsula Regional Advisory Committee, advising the minister on World Heritage Listing Cape York and the Tropical Landscape Joint Venture, a research partnership between CSIRO and James Cook University. Mike and Jane run a small farm on the Daintree Rv. He was awarded his AM for conservation of the Daintree Rainforests and services to local government.

Mike began his career in conservation and politics as an activist, twice arrested in protests, owned and operated the Port Douglas and Mossman Gazette, was media advisor to Graham Richardson and was Mayor of Douglas Shire from 1991 to 2008

Geoff Penton grew up living and working on the family farm, before completing a Bachelor of Applied Science (Agricultural Systems) at university. Geoff began his career in Landcare and regional natural resource management as one of the then Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries first four Landcare Facilitators.

This developed into a regional NRM role, resulting in an eventual move to QMDC. Geoff has been involved with QMDC since its inception, moving into the CEO role in 2008 and has also played a key role with the Queensland Landcare Foundation, of which he is currently the Chair.

Carolyn has been with the Central West CMA from its inception in 2004. She possesses extensive experience and specialist expertise in the management of natural resources, strengthened through various positions in the public and educational sectors and local government over the past 20 years.

Carolyn has provided valuable leadership and direction in natural resource management strategic development and planning, including the development of the Central West Catchment Action Plan using resilience thinking and evidence based practice.

Qualifications include Bachelor of Science (Hons) from Monash University and a Master of Environmental Management from the University of New England.

Tanya Rucosky Noakes manages the Upper Murrumbidgee Waterwatch project on the principle that community can make substantive contributions to NRM monitoring, and thus take on a role not just in on-ground works, but in planning and policy. Previous to her work in the Murrumbidgee, Tanya worked in the American park system as an educator building links between community, NRM bodies and industry around water quality issues. Tanya has also worked as an AusAID project manager in South East Asia, organic farmer, teacher and editor."

Founder and Principal Consultant of Greenspan.

With 37 years' experience, Mark has earned Industry recognition for excelling in the design and integration of innovative systems for the monitoring and management of the environment globally, particularly projects of the pressing complexity that are being presented today. From the SMART Tunnel in Kuala Lumpur to Flood Forecasting and Warning Systems within Australia, his passion and dedication has grown Greenspan from a single office to locations throughout Australia and Internationally.

Global opportunities have grown the Greenspan Team, with staff now in 10 locations including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia, Vancouver -Canada and Austin-Texas-USA.

Delivering solutions with effective and sustainable results count.

Steven Cork is an ecologist, strategist, futurist and policy advisor. He was a research scientist with CSIRO for 25 years, worked as an advisor to State and Australian governments throughout much of that period, spent several years working in the Australia Government on environmental policy issues, and played a lead role in developing scenarios for how humans and the natural environment might interact over the next 50 years in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Currently he works as a consultant advising governments, businesses and community organisations on policy and strategy and training public servants in strategic and futures thinking. He also leads a project on Australia's resilience with Australia21 and was the editor of a recent book on that subject "Resilience and Transformation: Preparing Australia for Uncertain Futures".

Klaus Koop is an environmental scientist whose career spans some 25 years in academia, development aid and public sector environment protection. Klaus is currently Director of Environment and Conservation Science in the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage where, among other things, he is responsible for leading the scientific input to the implementation of the NSW Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Strategy.