Five Fun Facts about Jeff

  • I really like trees. I love the satisfaction that comes from growing trees.  We have a small revegetation project on our property which we have put about 3000 natives into so far and am continually raising seedlings for each planting season. On the rest of our property I like growing trees for autumn colour and fruit trees (especially if they are cheap or free!). I also really enjoy the art of bonsai, although most of my projects over the last 10 or so years have eventually died 😊 
  • My favourite outdoor activity is caving. Being underground is cool. It’s not always squirming along in tight spaces being freaked out! Sometimes it’s sliding down waterfalls or walking through shallow streams. Sometimes it’s wandering through spaces big enough for a house or two, marvelling at the speleothems and glowworms. However, admittedly there are the more adventurous moments where you have to completely breathe out all your air just to fit through somewhere! 
  • I’m a little bit of a petrol-head. I used to have a modified Volkswagon Beetle, had long hair and rode motorcycles! One day I’d like to have a classic car again, but for now I will enjoy teaching my three daughters to drive the go kart!
  • Our journey into property ownership was in partnership with others. Our first house was purchased with another couple, and we committed to 5 years together before out-growing it with children and selling. That made it possible to then get our own place which we sold a couple years later and joined with my wife’s parents to buy where we are now. I’m always super grateful every time I think about how we have managed to get to where we are now. It’s definitely not something we could have done by ourselves.
  • I love stories. Whether it’s a movie, a children’s book, a song or a novel, I’m intrigued by how much you can get caught-up in the characters’ worlds. I unintentionally wrote a 90,000-word story as a literacy assignment at university because I got so invested in the character’s lives and having to find them some restoration throughout the course of the story before I created an ending, it was a truly surreal experience. 

Jeff is the Operations Manager at our Auckland branch and is responsible for all the day-to-day things related to making our programmes happen. He originally trained with us as an instructor in 2006/07 and then spent a few years doing factory and manufacturing type jobs before going back to university to train as a teacher. He then spent a few years at a west Auckland intermediate before coming back to the Adventure Specialties Trust for his current role in January 2016.

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