The author graduated in agriculture and agricultural economics from Glasgow University and obtained a master of agricultural science degree from Melbourne University. After first graduating, he spent two and a half years as assistant to a farmer in England followed by six years managing a group of farms in Western Australia, where the enterprises included stud and commercial beef cattle. After that, he spent thirty years as a beef cattle researcher at Rutherglen Research Institute in Northeast Victoria and on early retirement share farmed with beef cattle on a farm at Rutherglen.