Rebecca Keoghan named Rural Woman of Influence

Westport's Rebecca Keoghan has added another major award to an impressive resume.

The general manager of Landcorp Farming's Pamu Academy has been named the Rural Woman of Influence at the 2018 awards, presented by Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy in Auckland.

Mrs Keoghan was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit last year for services to business, particularly the dairy industry, and was the 2016 Dairy Woman of the Year.

She is a director of Westland Milk Products and chairs its health and safety committee.

Mrs Keoghan, who has a medical science degree and diplomas in leadership and advanced business management, spent six years running medical laboratories in New Zealand, Australia, and Britain before moving to the West Coast, where she and her husband, Nathan, are the fifth generation on the family's 300ha dairy farm.

Mrs Keoghan was operations manager for Holcim for eight years then became a Landcorp business manager responsible for five large dairy farms, a dairy support farm, and a machinery syndicate across the Cape Foulwind and Grey Valley areas.

She has been a Buller Holdings director, member of the Ospri Northern South Island committee, and president of West Coast board of the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society.

She also plays trombone in the Westport Brass Band and is a professional percussionist with Auckland and Blenheim A-grade brass bands, and somehow finds time to help her two children take part in sporting and cultural activities.

Mrs Keoghan told Central Rural Life she was ''over the moon'' to win the Woman of Influence award, especially when she looked at the other contenders.

She said it had been great publicity for the Pamu Academy - a joint venture between Landcorp Farming and Wilson Consulting Group aimed at improving safety leadership in and beyond the rural sector.