Signature Beef's Maddy Wightman is making her mark in the industry

Growing up in the river-city, Maddy Wightman didn't know a whole lot about agriculture, but the talented young rower became interested after making friends with some girls from the bush who told her all about the workings of their home properties.

After years of training which led her to competing at a state and national level, Ms Wightman decided that she needed to take a break from her sport, and what better place to do it than a remote cattle station.

Ironically, she landed a job as a full time station hand at Argyle Downs, situated on the border of Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and bordered by one of Australia's largest freshwater reservoirs, Lake Argyle.

"I just wanted to go out there and see what it was all about, because I'd heard about it from a few of my mates but it was an industry that I didn't really know anything about," Ms Wightman said.

"I don't think it was ever really spoken about during school as a career path option."

After that, she worked on various other stations, including Bunda, Manbulloo and Newcastle Waters, before starting this year with the Angus family's Signature On Farm company, based on Kimberley station Clermont.

Ms Wightman said the major reason for her prolonged stay up north was that she kept finding more areas that peaked her interest and she was keen to learn about all aspects of the beef industry, which has also led her to work with various groups such as the Young Livestock Exporters Network.

"After being a station hand for about two-and-a-half years, I moved into an admin technical assistant role, doing a lot of data collection on the breeding herd and reporting all of that back to the station manager and general managers," she said.

"The first block that I worked on was a steer depot that was linked with the live export chain and we did a lot of work with the export yards, but I wanted to then see what it was like working on a breeding block, so that's how I ended up staying for a second year.

"After that I wanted to learn how to preg test and get into the data side of things, understanding why they made different breeding decisions.

"I think each year I just wanted to expand my knowledge until I knew more about each part of the industry, and now I've ended up at Signature which is completely different again, where we breed for meat quality and domestic sales."

"So that's been really good and to be able to understand how we breed for marbling score basically, and to have our full supply chain in one spot is really cool.

"I've never really had much to do with a feedlot or abattoir but now, that's almost my whole job."

While working at Signature On Farm, Ms Wightman said she had been lucky enough to work under the guidance of directors Blair and Josie Angus, which she says has been an invaluable learning opportunity.

"I work closely with Josie and she's an amazing mentor, there's so much to learn from her," she said.

"She's a walking encyclopedia of cattle knowledge, it's pretty amazing.

"I've learned a lot from her already, but there's still so much more to come. It's really exciting."

With news last week that Signature had been given the green light to export beef from their on-farm processing plant, Ms Wightman said it was a huge relief for the whole team to be issued a Tier One listing by the Department of Agriculture.

"Getting that was really exciting because we've obviously all worked really hard, and it's been really rewarding because our core crew have all chipped in in some way to get us to where we are," she said.

"It's a big relief for everyone, but it'll be interesting, there'll be new challenges and new doors are opened.

"I think it's pretty amazing, being able to see the end product and how much effort every single person puts into the supply chain, and when one is missing, it all falls apart.

"I just didn't really realise the full worth of each individual in the supply chain and what role they play until now, but that's one of the reasons that I love my job."

Ms Wightman she had done several visits to school and spoke alongside her colleagues about the opportunities within the beef industry, something which she said isn't spoken about enough.

Considering the connections that she has made over the last five years, Ms Wightman said she would continue to build her career and didn't see herself returning to the city any time soon.

"I've met a lot of good friends while I've been up here and there's so much to learn, the meat industry is massive," she said.

"We have a really good group of like minded people that work at Sig, which is awesome. You probably couldn't have picked a better bunch of people to end up together.

"I wouldn't go back to Brisbane now, I love my job and I think the best thing about it all has been being able to connect with so many people."

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