Tea Tree Oil

Tea Tree Oil Advisory Panel

Phillip Butlin (Chair)

Main Camp Natural Extracts

Phillip is the Managing Director of Main Camp Natural Extracts (MCNE), the world’s largest tea tree oil producer with operations across 10 farms in NSW. Prior to establishing MCNE, Phillip was an executive and director of Great Southern Limited, an ASX listed managed investment scheme business. Phillip has worked at Macquarie Bank in Sydney and Hong Kong in the bank’s equity capital market division and prior to Macquarie Bank worked for the international accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, in London and Sydney. Phillip has been a qualified accountant for over 30 years; he is a board member and was previous president of the Australian Tea Tree Industry Association.

Dr Cynthia Cliff

Technology at Work

Cynthia has worked at operational, executive and board levels in a variety of public, private and not-for-profit organisations. Her experience includes RD&E (research, development, and extension), policy, economic transformation, technology and social change across a wide range of industry sectors including mining, agriculture, health and the environment. She is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD) with 10+ years’ Board and Advisory experience. A journey from family farming background via a PhD in organic chemistry, consumer product testing, and health research has provided a springboard for career-long engagement in industry development work that often crosses traditional discipline and social boundaries in a way that has useful similarities with the production, formulation, manufacturing, and marketing challenges faced by the Australian tea tree oil industry.

Peter Entwistle

North East Agricultural Services

Peter is an agronomist who has provided a respected agricultural advisory service (North East Agricultural Services) to the Australian tea tree industry for the past 20 years. Advice includes plantation development, soil nutrition, insect pest management and, weed and disease management (IPDM). Most of the industry now uses this advice. Peter has also been employed by the Australian Tea Tree Industry Association (ATTIA) and the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) to carry out a range of research and extension projects to improve tea tree production. These include the ATTIA Code of Practice the industry now uses as a production standard and continual improvement to the IPDM strategy.

Glenn Donnelly

Blue Dog Agriculture

Glenn founded and has since been the contiguous Managing Director of Offco Pty Ltd (Oil Food and Fibre Company) T/A Blue Dog Agriculture, a vertically integrated Grower, Distiller, Distributor and Global Exporter of Australian Tea Tree Oil and other Botanical Derivatives. Glenn is a member of the Essential Oils Producers Association of Australia, a long-standing board member for over 25 years and a previous board member of the Australian Tea Tree Industry Association. Glenn is a qualified agronomist initially completing an Applied Science Diploma – Horticulture at the then Queensland Ag College in Gatton followed by a Bachelors in Agribusiness graduating in the first tranche of Agribusiness degrees in Australia from UQ Gatton.  Now with over 25 years of experience in the industry and having developed a world’s best practice distillation and distribution facility in Northern NSW, Glenn and Blue Dog Agriculture are regularly referred to as the industry’s benchmark grower and distillers. Glenn and Blue Dog Agriculture regularly conduct on-farm R&D and often in conjunction with universities including SCU Lismore.

Paul Bolster

P Guinane Pty Ltd

Paul serves as the lead registrant for the REACH dossier with the European Chemical Agency. With his wife Pat, Paul has owned and operated a Tea Tree Oil farm and distillery for over 30 years. Along with this together they have developed and patented a Tea Tree Oil based sheep licide, the Gelair product, a 10% Tea Tree Oil gel used to kill mould and bacteria in air conditioning systems and patented the micro encapsulated Tea Tree Oil for use in stock feed as an antibiotic replacement. Paul brings also legal expertise to his skillset, having been a qualified lawyer in a private practice with his brother for 28 years.

Martin Shortt

Southern Cross Botanicals

Martin is the Technical Manager of Northern NSW based cosmetic ingredient manufacturer Southern Cross Botanicals. He is a botanical ingredient specialist focusing on the development and commercialization of Australian and non-Australian plant ingredients for the global cosmetics, food, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical sectors. He has over 15 years of phytochemistry experience across multiple disciplines including R&D and upscale, botanical supply chains and plantation establishment, project management, technical sales and business development. Martin specialises in the development of value added tea tree oil products through his intimate knowledge of product chemistry, processing and meeting market demands.

John Price

CP Holdings

John is the MD of CP Holdings,  a company that is a shareholder in Byron Bay Essentials Oils – a grower and distiller of tea tree oil,  also owning a pharmaceutical/medical device company.  CP Holdings develops and distributes specialist products through first response, emergency medicine, woundcare markets and pharmacies in Australia and key global markets. A number of these therapeutic products contain Tea Tree Oil as the active ingredient and John provides experience in what is involved to take tea tree oil from research papers to successful therapeutic products in the marketplace. John spent 4 years on the ATTIA board and prior to this was the MD of Rye Pharmaceuticals for 25 years, marketing Australian developed products globally through the emergency medicine and pharmacy markets.  The brands were purchased by an American multinational in 2015 and John spent 3 years transitioning  the brands to Mundipharma post divestment. John grew up on a farm and studied science at university in Melbourne which lead to a career in the pharmaceutical industry.