From prolonged drought and bushfires to COVID border closures and then devastating floods, Josh McGregor has faced it all in recent years as Managing Director of McGregor Gourlay Agricultural Services.
The November 2022 floods may have spared the company’s Moree head office, but Josh reports that two other sites were inundated earlier in the year, along with scores of valued clients across northern NSW and southern Queensland.
Climate dominates everything, and dealing with natural disasters goes with the territory
“Climate dominates everything, and dealing with natural disasters goes with the territory,” Josh says. “We’re certainly seeing some extremes in recent years and we may have to get used to going from 0 to 100 and back again more often than we’d like.”
Having a handle on sophisticated science and the technology available to mitigate climate variables is imperative to advance the business and service the evolving needs of primary producers. But Josh says traditional values dating back to the very origins of McGregor Gourlay in 1897 remain its bedrock.
“We have a lot of staff among our 140-strong team that have been with us for 10 or 20 years plus,” he says. “Their wealth of knowledge and experience is the foundation of the business. In times of uncertainty, you need great people in your business to maintain the culture. That builds a base of customers who are willing to put their trust in you. If you have a solid group around you with leadership, discipline, excellent processes and administration, you can deal with most problems. But you’ve got to stay focussed to maintain that environment.”
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, Josh believes it takes a team to sustain a strong business, especially across 13 branches. “Someone has to make decisions, to be the boss, but no one person has all the answers,” he says. “You need to stay in touch with people at all levels in the business, and often our people on the frontline, such as our receptionists and delivery drivers, have identified important developments that the rest of us might have missed.
If you find good people, you look after them because they are the business
“I grew up in the business, watching the way my father treated people and the way his team responded to him. I’ve got that old-school part of me that I can’t and won’t shake. If you find good people, you look after them because they are the business.”
Then, when things get really tough, as they did during the 2018-19 drought, the foundations are unshakeable. “It was a really stressful time, trying to keep everyone’s spirits up,” Josh says. “By the end of 2019 there was this creeping feeling of despair and we were all wondering when it was going to end. But we held it together and kept the team intact, and made it out the other side.”
Josh is a big believer that difficult times can still make for opportunities to learn and improve, and McGregor Gourlay certainly did so during that time. “We tightened up our stock management processes, our network adapted and broadened its range, and our strategy to diversify geographically to the coastal regions proved extremely important.”
Still, the more recent ferocious weather events, coupled with global conflict, supply chain disruptions and COVID have tested the company’s mettle once again. “In terms of our supply chain, I’ve never seen so many extremes happening at the same time,” Josh says. “This has been a long, long stretch of volatility and supply disruption that is quite unlike anything any of us have ever had to deal with before.
“Despite all that, there is no substitute for professional, experienced operators. Our customers jumped out of the blocks when conditions improved and went from 0 to 100 miles an hour overnight, and so did we. Skill and experience beats technological developments any day.”
Josh certainly has no regrets about his own career trajectory and the value of his Bachelor of Arts studies at UNE, in Economic History and Law, which he describes as “personally educational”.
“When I left uni I went straight back to agriculture, worked a few years in the family business, and then a few years in WA and Queensland for an agricultural chemicals supplier,” he says. “I then decided to see a bit of the world and did a stint backpacking in Europe and the Middle East, and then landed a role in London working for the Royal Bank of Scotland, which ended up lasting almost five years.”
But agribusiness again beckoned when he returned to Australia in 2002. After a number of years working for corporate enterprises in Brisbane and Melbourne, he returned home after a 16-year absence. “For a long time I assumed I would walk a different path. It [joining the business that bore his family’s name] seems to have been a logical step to just about everyone but myself,” Josh says.
Josh with father Ian McGregor, David Smith and Norma Menzies, long term staffers at Warialda.
The years in business and seasonal extremes since have taught him that relationships – with family, staff and customers – are priceless. That explains the company’s extraordinary efforts to maintain cross-state deliveries during COVID lockdowns and its fundraising to support team members who lost all their belongings to raging floodwaters.
“We rely on people and information all the time to make sound decisions,” Josh says. “We spend a lot of time looking at what’s happening with global markets but also staying close to our suppliers and customers to gather and share information. It’s a constant process to build a picture of what we should be doing and when.
“It’s important to me that when our people go home at the end of the day they can feel pride in what they do; that they have a career that is satisfying. That they know McGregor Gourlay is a business that cares about them and that what they do makes a difference.”
