Katrina Simpson goes to great lengths for her family — literally.
Living on the West Coast, and with three very sporty children, meant she was often on the road travelling long distances.
But the Silver Fern Farms livestock representative said she was "all for sports and activities", saying it was so good for their personal wellbeing and growth.
"If you want your kids to do stuff, then you just have to do it," she said.
Originally from Montalto in Canterbury, Katrina attended boarding school in Timaru before completing an agricultural science degree at Lincoln University.
From there, she joined PGG Wrightson’s trainee scheme which covered all parts of the business, from livestock to real estate and retail.
She was posted to Whangarei before transferring to the West Coast in 1995 and she has remained there.
Katrina now lives with her three teenage children on a 54ha farm at Rimu, just out of Hokitika, which she farmed herself prior to leasing it when life got a bit too busy.
She joined Silver Fern Farms in 2013 after returning from maternity leave and she acknowledged it was a male-dominated job then and it still was today.
"I love my job. I wouldn’t want to do anything else and I love the farmers and I love being over here.
"When I first came over here, a lot of grads, whether bankers or farm advisers, came to the Coast and did a year and then go somewhere else. I came here and then never left."
A previous finalist in the Dairy Women’s Network community leadership award, Katrina is a former DWN regional convener for the West Coast. She and her former husband previously worked in the dairy industry, 50:50 sharemilking.
She has been involved as a judge for the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards, an event the couple previously entered when farming, and she saw judging as a way to give back for what they got out of it. She is also passionate about seeing young people get involved in farming.
Katrina is chairwoman of the Ospri West Coast TbFree committee. When she first joined the committee, there were more than 200 infected herds and now it was down to one which was "amazing".
Now the key was to keep it at the forefront of people’s minds, she said.
On the sporting front, Katrina is registrar for the West Coast Hockey Association and compiles the hockey draw, she is the local Hokitika Hockey Club president and manages a youth collegiate team.
With her daughter in the Tasman under-18 hockey team, weekends during the season were spent travelling to Nelson or Marlborough for training. She is also on the Hokitika netball executive.
She is also group leader for the Greymouth Scout Group and is involved with fundraising for a jamboree in Australia next year which two of her children will attend.
Asked whether she ever had time to herself, Katrina laughed how she decided to start swimming during her many trips to Greymouth — but there was always some stock to look at or groceries to buy, so she still had not made it to the pool. But she was not fazed about that.
"They [her children] are not going to be this age forever ... in a couple of years, I probably will be saying, ‘oh my God, what am I going to do?"
