Farewell but not goodbye to Kobie Keenan
By Peter Vaughan
After 17 years with Greenlife Industry Australia (GIA) and its predecessor Nursery & Garden Industry Australia (NGIA), it is time to say “farewell” but not goodbye to Kobie.
Kobie is taking a position with the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) as the Scheme Administrator for the Polypropylene Plant Packaging Recycling (PoPPr) program, which is the joint national program between GIA and APCO for the recycling of plastic plant packaging in the Australian greenlife industry.
Kobie says, the scheme is about collective industry good. She wants to deliver a valued and accessible recycling program that supports industry and business goals for sustainable practice.
“I am motivated to help establish a program which is inclusive, by engaging the whole greenlife packaging chain in the solution. I am excited to work towards this goal on behalf of an industry that I am passionate about, which has mentored me over the last 17 years and fuelled my desire to focus on sustainability.”
Kobie started with NGIA in 2004 at the height of the drought, jumping in to support the national roll out of Wise about Water. Since then, Kobie has contributed to support many areas for the industry including the business development programs before taking on responsibility for the Nursery & Garden Industry Awards and National Industry Conference which is the premier networking and information extension event for the industry. The smallest of details was managed to the nth degree to ensure the conferences went off with military precision.
She is most proud of helping to establish the nursery industry statistics project which has been running for five years, delivering annual nursery gate production and value data, insights into labour, productivity, and industry sentiment. This project that has given the greenlife industry a ‘value’ and the information captured has been used to help profile the industry and raise awareness of its importance, especially during 2020.
At the request of the NGIA Board, Kobie supported the nursery industry structure review from 2016 to 2019 which led to the member vote in support of establishing GIA. Since then, she has supported the strategy development for the new national peak body and was part of the team transitioning GIA information technology to a new modern platform, integrating the database and website.
Kobie has worked to deliver highly regarded nursery industry communications programs for industry Members and Levy Payers and has contributed to the development, communication, and implementation of nursery industry marketing programs such as Plant Pals; and has assisted the teams delivering Plant Life Balance, Greener Spaces Better Places and the 202020 Vision.
Kobie has been nominated for the Hort Connections Women in Horticulture Award this year. This is recognition of Kobie’s contribution to an industry which provides starting plants for all of horticulture. The award is to be announced at the conference dinner on 9 June.
Kobie has always had an acute attention to detail and is extremely diligent to ensure the work she undertakes meets and generally exceeds the achievement criteria and objectives of the activity being undertaken to an exacting standard. Kobie's focus is and has always been on nursery industry members, levy payers and broader stakeholders to ensure outputs, benefits and value are delivered.
We wish Kobie well in the future and will no doubt see her ‘around the industry’.