FOR Primaries wool technician Trevor Pedler, wool represents a 52-year love affair with an industry that has provided him everything from fond memories and exciting times, to travel and a pay cheque.
Serving his final day before semi-retirement last Friday, Mr Pedler looked back over his time in the industry as a fantastic learning curve and said the strangest thing about his job, was that most people had no idea what it involved.
"Unless they're involved in the WA wool industry, the general public's knowledge of what goes on, extends to seeing a few wool bales stacked high on the back of a truck, heading down Albany Highway," he said.
Beginning his career in New Zealand in 1961, Mr Pedler has seen most aspects of the wool industry, starting out as a cadet for New Zealand stock and station agent Loan and Mercantile, while attending Massey University in New Zealand.
After graduating university he gained some experience as a buyer for one of New Zealand's largest scouring plants
W. Tucker, before migrating to Australia to work for Japanese trading company C.Itoh in 1968.
"In those days there were a few Japanese companies doing business in Australia, but we were the biggest," he said.
"It was a great experience and as a buyer I travelled throughout the country and even internationally to Japan, Korea and Taiwan."
He recollected the early days of the WA wool industry, when it was based in Fremantle and said it was a real club within the community, with everyone from bankers to shipping companies to wool agents based there.
"It was such a unique little industry and a huge part of Fremantle's history," he said.
After a brief hiatus from the industry, owning a newsagency for a few years and working in the wool game part-time, Mr Pedler began working for Primaries in 1985.
It was this time he spent at Primaries, that really stood out as one of the fondest memories of his career.
"It was amazing to see the company grow from its beginning in 1981," he said.
"We went from handling 20,000 bales for my first year, to the full agricultural service we offer these days."
With more than 50 years of involvement in the WA wool industry, including the industry's move from Fremantle, to its current location in Spearwood, Mr Pedler said the biggest change had been the uptake of technology.
"Before technology, wool used to be sold in what was called the looky-looky method, where whole bales were presented without test results and buyers had to judge the quality of the wool, what it would do for them as a process and then value it," he said.
"Technology then came along, with tests measuring micron, yield of wool and then in later stages strength and length, which made a huge difference.
"Rather than show whole bales, wool agencies could show samples which sped up the brokering operation."
With the current price of wool easing from the highs experienced in July last year, Mr Pedler was hopeful wool prices would recover and said it was nothing the industry hadn't experienced before.
"We've seen tough times in the 1990's but we also had them in the 70s," he said. "I remember buying locks to sell to Japan for a quarter of a cent a pound.
"It was costing us more to ship the wool to Japan than actually buy a bale.
"We saw tough times in 1993 with the Western Micron Indicator (WMI) at about 289 cents a kilogram, so it shows things can turn around."
Other than the extremely low prices in the early nineties, the other sad part about the industry for Mr Pedler has been the world-wide demise of the sheep population, shrinking to almost a third of what it was 20 years ago.
"While it is sad, I believe wool as a fibre has a strong future," he said.
"It's a unique fibre, and people are starting to realise the benefits of natural fibres over synthetic.
"I think the industry will probably start to grow again and I'm sure it will become a a large part of the western textile industry for quite some time."
