A woman raised on one of central Queensland’s brigalow ballot blocks and educated by correspondence is a finalist in the 2016 Queensland Telstra Business Women’s awards.
Marlborough cattlewoman and environmental planning consultant Patrice Brown is one of three finalists in the entrepreneur category, along with Brisbane-based interior designer Melissa Marsden and accountant Tanya Titman.
The daughter of influential cattleman John Purcell OAM and the product of schooling at the Clarke Creek State School and boarding schools in Rockhampton, Patrice runs the family cattle property, Yatton, with her siblings, and owns an environmental planning and engineering consultancy business with offices in Rockhampton, Gladstone and Brisbane.
A mother of three with qualifications in engineering, science and business coupled with a rural background and over 30 years’ experience as an environmental practitioner, Patrice presents a strong voice for the agriculture sector in conservation issues and regulatory matters.
She says she is in a unique position of having grown up on the land and working in the environmental space.
“I’ve worked with groups such as UNESCO and have that relationship,” she said. “Being a Telstra finalist gives me a voice to say, don’t forget about this part of the jigsaw puzzle.”
She is passionate about the future of regional Australia, the rights of Aboriginal people and the need to trust science rather than social media in the race to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
“I’ve spent 30 years in the environmental science space, doing impact assessments. The Great Barrier Reef is definitely under threat in areas but conservation groups deliberately exaggerate impacts in the name of their brand and bringing more money into their coffers.
“Port dredging was seen as the bad guy but science has demonstrated that it’s not.
“Similar things are happening in the ag sector, and it’s affecting the confidence of investors in agriculture.
“People have got good prices for their product but activism is a looming question for people looking to invest, super funds and so on.”
Patrice said this was balanced by the uptake of best management practice (BMP) programs for sugar and grazing.
“As a state, we need that level of maturity to look at problems and attend to them. That will reflect back to banks too,” she said.
Patrice also hopes her place as a finalist will give confidence to young women from small country schools.
“They are educated in a supportive environment that you don’t get in the city,” she said, explaining her description of that education. “And you have to take risks to get ahead. You hit the streets running.”
Patrice is a director on the CQUniversity Council and on the Gladstone Area Water Board, and is a founding director/owner of two start-ups, Northern Ventures, a company that supports Aboriginal groups to achieve economic independence, and Fortitude Infrastructure Development, a company formed to deliver green technologies.
She is also sought out as a presenter at national and international conferences, presented to UNESCO during their mission to assess the management of the Great Barrier Reef and was one of 17 CEOs who accompanied the former federal Minister for Trade, Andrew Robb on a trade mission to Canada last year.
The winners of the Telstra Business Women awards will be announced at a gala dinner in Brisbane on October 14.
