Winners emphasise family focus

Keri Johnston

A South Canterbury-based environmental consultancy duo are the supreme winners of this year's Enterprising Rural Women Awards announced at the Rural Women national conference in Rotorua.

Keri Johnston and Haidee McCabe, principals of Irricon Resource Solutions, have gone from strength to strength since they established their joint consultancy in 2010.

They employ nine staff located from Motonau in North Canterbury to Duntroon in North Otago, with skills that range from ecology to engineering. A key feature of their business is Johnston and McCabe's philosophy of fitting work around family and farming life, wherever that might be.

Johnston, a natural resources engineer, says: "Where we are today was born out of a desire to have professional careers, but on our terms -- working from home, around children and farming." She and her husband farm just out of Geraldine in South Canterbury.

McCabe, an environmental consultant from Albury, says: "Five of our consultants are women who would not be working professionally if they didn't work for Irricon.

"Working from home means the best of all worlds for these women, and it allows them the opportunity to work, but be wives, mums and farm workers as well.

"Unless we're in a hearing, we're not a 'suit and tie' type of business -- our jeans and gumboots are well worn. Our clients really appreciate having someone turn up who knows farming. We can talk to them in their language about the issues. Because of the expertise we have we can handle almost any job from start to finish -- design, consenting, implementation and compliance. We have over 500 clients and this number is growing."

The business focuses on improving or maintaining the sustainability of natural resources -- such as land, water and waste -- and is also involved in irrigation and catchment management.

Irricon Resource Solutions also won the Help! I Need Somebody category, sponsored by Access Homehealth.

Other category winners in this year's Enterprising Rural Women Awards included Renee De Luca, of Putake Honey, based near Blenheim.

Renee won the Love of the Land category, sponsored by Agrisea.

The Making it in Rural section, sponsored by Spark, was hotly contested, with the main award going to Nicola Wright, of Wrights Winery and Vineyard in Gisborne. A special merit award went to Dot Kettle and Georgia Richards, of Dove River Peonies, Wakefield, near Nelson.

The winner of the Stay, Play Rural Award, sponsored by Xero, was Bobbie Mulgrew, of Easyhike, a car relocation service based at Glenorchy, servicing hikers heading for the Routeburn and Milford tracks.

Rural Women New Zealand national president Wendy McGowan said: "Through the Enterprising Rural Women Awards we are keen to raise awareness of women's entrepreneurship and their input into rural communities. "Women are not always good at promoting themselves. We want to raise their profiles and give them credit for the huge amount of effort involved."