Richard Wanhill

Richard is our Business Development Manager, he is the guy who talks to people to find out how thoughtplanters can meet their training needs.

Primarily he talks to them about how we can help. Training staff is so much more than just teaching skills and complying with the latest legislation. Efficiency, safety and improved productivity are almost by-products of quality training – get the training right and the rest will follow.

Richard has 15 years experience in the Arboricultural industry, with five years as a branch manager of Treescape Ltd in Wellington.

I really enjoy meeting people. There are some great people in the horticulture industry, which makes my job really interesting. Watching a company grow and develop through training and education is a buzz. I also really enjoy identifying a client's education and training issues, addressing those needs and, at the same time, raising the standards and quality of our industry overall. That way, it's a win-win.

His favourite pastime is surfing. I surf as much as I can when I can. It's about being outdoors and challenging myself physically - particularly now that I spend most of my day in front of a computer screen. I learnt to surf when I was 6 or 7 years old. My Dad surfed, and so do my two older brothers. So it was a family sport.

I travel a lot with my job which, has some benefits like sampling Singapore's chicken rice and noodle soups.