PRIMARIES livestock representative Keith Taylor retired on July 5, after almost half a century in the livestock industry.
It will be a little hard to say goodbye to the job he has loved since leaving school and starting his career with Elders GM in 1965.
"Well I was never interested in books or school for that matter, I just wanted to work with stock," Keith said.
"Even though I wasn't from a farming background, I was always interested in it."
For Keith, the early days of his career were full of physical work, long hours but the biggest drawcard was working in the great outdoors with livestock.
He counts himself as fortunate enough to work for a number of different companies in similar roles throughout his career, moving to Dalgety after Elders GM and remaining with them when Western Livestock took them over.
From there he took a job at Wesfarmers and then joined Rural Traders Co-operative (RTC) until eventually landing in a Primaries shirt in 2000 when they became more involved in the cattle market.
It was commonplace to spot Keith holding the auctioneer's gavel throughout his years in the livestock industry, and one of his accomplishments includes organising and holding the first cattle sale in the Kimberley.
According to Keith it was quite an event, held in the late 1970s at the government-owned Ord River station which was being de-stocked before it was flooded, a result of the planned construction of the Ord River dam.
"There wasn't too many market options back then so they either had to go to meat works or other stations," he said.
"I remember all these light aircraft having to form a queue because we had a heap of station guys flying in from the Northern Territory and Queensland.
"There was about 18 or 20 planes lined up on the ground, it was quite a sight.
"Most of the cattle ended up going interstate."
Some of Keith's fondest memories involved working in the pastoral region, experiencing the conditions in the North West, organising more cattle sales on the stations and auctioneering.
In his time in the industry, Keith has noticed the changing influence technology has had on livestock markets, particularly relying less on saleyards to trade stock.
It has seen less physical work and more options have opened up to producers, such as the live export trade.
These evolving technologies and new ideas of the upcoming generation were part of the reason Keith has decided to call it a day, as he said he wanted to make it more accessible for the younger people in the industry to move forward.
As a young bloke himself and moving through the ranks, Keith said he has had the opportunity to work with so many great people and was proud to be finishing with a WA company.
"Primaries is a very good company and I have been very fortunate to work with some great people over the years," he said.
"They are a WA company, which means they know and understand the practical side of farming here."
He said he's looking forward to doing a bit of travelling and putting his feet up to enjoy the next phase of life.
