Congratulations to Wendy McGowan : Rural Women NZ

Past National President Wendy McGowan has been named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to rural women in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Wendy has been a member of Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) since 1975 and has held offices with the Kaharoa Branch, Provincial and Inter-Provincial Committees.

She said she felt excited about the honour and very thankful to the people who had nominated her.

In 2005 Mrs McGowan became National Councillor for the Region Five area covering Coromandel to Gisborne.

She was vice president for two years, convened the Social Issues Committee and the Land Use Committee.

Wendy represented RWNZ on the New Zealand Food Safety Consumer Forum for four years.

She was appointed National President of RWNZ from 2013 to 2016, during which time she led the delegation to the 2014 South Pacific Area Conference and the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) Triennial World Conference.

Wendy oversaw the implementation of changes to the structure of the governing body and rules of RWNZ and negotiated the sale of Access Homehealth Ltd during her term as National President.

She has been an individual member of the ACWW and was part of the RWNZ delegation to the South Pacific Area Conference in Tonga in 2011. She has served on the Rural Community Trust as the RWNZ representative.

Wendy is a member of the Kaimai-Mamaku Catchment Forum and Federated Farmers Rotorua/Taupo Province, and has been president and chairperson of Federated Farmers Meat and Fibre section for the province.

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Congratulations to Rebecca Keoghan

Rebecca Keoghan has been named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business, particularly the dairy industry.

Rebecca Keoghan is a RWNZ member and has contributed to the Westland region for the past 10 years. In addition to her role as co-director of a 250 cow, 300 hectare farm Mrs Keoghan was Operations Manager of Westport’s Holcim Cement Ltd, controlling the quality production of 500,000 tonnes of clinker and 550,000 tonnes of cement per annum. She led the growth of a ‘zero harm’ culture for her staff at Holcim.

Currently as Business Manager of Landcorp Farming Ltd she is responsible for the strategic development and management of five large dairy farms in the region, as well as a dairy support farm and a machinery syndicate spanning the Cape Foulwind and Grey Valley areas.

She is a director of Westland Milk Products Ltd and of Buller Holdings, which has responsibility for Buller District Council’s commercial assets.

She was formerly Area President of the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society’s West Coast Board.

She was a member of the Northern South Island committee of OSPRI, the organisation managing the National Animal Identification and Tracing programme to eliminate bovine tuberculosis from New Zealand.

Rebecca was previously Team Leader and is currently a judge for the Dairy Manager of the Year Award programme for the Dairy Industry Awards. She was the Dairy Women’s Network Dairy Woman of the Year in 2016.