JAD Speckle Park is the brainchild of Justin and Amy Dickens, together with their sons Jack, 10, and Mitchell, 9.
Or perhaps we should just call JAD Speckle Park our third child! To say we are passionate about our cattle is an understatement. We pride ourselves on our relationships, our integrity, and our passion for the Speckle Park breed and its success in the commercial Australian beef industry. We have life-long experience in commercial livestock businesses, and have combined this experience with further education, great mentors, and setting goals to drive success. As Peter Drucker said in his infamous quote, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Everything we do is measured, reported, analysed, discussed, and learned from. We embrace change, and have a bold vision for the role of Speckle Park cattle in the Australian beef industry of the future.
“The first step to getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” – J. P. Morgan
Justin Dickens
Whether it be breeding Nardoo Border Collie working dogs in his earlier years, analysing stockhorse pedigrees, or working on a nearby Merino sheep stud, Justin has always had a passion for breeding the best animals he can. He has been around cattle his entire life – on commercial and seedstock properties – and enjoys the challenge of trying to improve animals with each generation, correctively mating to produce a “type” that he believes in. He also believes in the value of science and data to assist and back-up this decision-making, and then bringing everything together to produce a measured, profitable product.
Justin spent his earlier years on his family’s pastoral property, Nardoo Station, at Wanaaring in Far West NSW, before relocating with his family to Coolah, in Central West NSW. He managed an Angus cattle breeding property at Bingara, on the NSW Northern Tablelands, for eight years, before moving with Amy to Yeoval to manage a Merino sheep-based mixed grazing property (2008-2015) for 2008 NSW Farmer of the Year winners, Nigel and Kate Kerin. He played an instrumental role in the establishment and early success of Kerin Poll Merino Stud, which now holds the largest Poll Merino sale in Australia. Justin has completed considerable training in farm management systems since working with the Kerin family and is pleased to now be implementing his knowledge in he and Amy’s own farming business. Courses completed include the Resource Consulting Services (RCS) Grazing for Profit School (twice), the Ranch Management Consultants (RMC) Ranching for Profit School in the United States in 2019, KLR Marketing School (three times), Rabobank Farm Manager’s Program, PrincipleFocus Business of Farming School and three-year StrategicFocus program, and we are members of the Aggregate Ag (formerly Holmes Sackett) Central West NSW Benchmarking Group (since 2016).
In April 2018, Justin was elected as a Director on the Board of the Speckle Park breed society, Speckle Park International (SPI). He carried out a three-year term before hanging up his breed society board boots to increase focus on our rapidly-expanding business, and to work with like-minded, commercially-focussed breeders to develop supply relationships for our clients.
Amy Dickens
Amy (nee Lawson) was raised on her family’s mixed farming property (Merino sheep/cattle/cropping) at Delungra, west of Inverell – and just north of Bingara. She completed an Arts/Science double degree, with majors in biology, journalism and public relations, at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) at Toowoomba, Queensland, and worked as a newspaper journalist at Inverell and Toowoomba before spending five years as a senior journalist with The Land newspaper.
Amy was a 2008 NSW Rural Achiever through the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, and has stewarded in the beef cattle rings at Sydney Royal ever since. In 2009, she established specialist agricultural public relations and media communications agency, Lawson Communications. Justin and Amy met in 2005, when Amy interviewed Justin for a feature story in The Land newspaper, following him winning the 2005 Australian Cattle Dog Trialling Championships. They moved to Yeoval in 2008 and were married in 2010. They both often spoke of “one day” owning their own farm and were stoked when that dream became a reality in March, 2012.
Amy established the ‘Speckle Park Cattle: Info & Classifieds, Australia’ Facebook group in March, 2016, as a space for people to share experiences, photos, knowledge, market sales and events, and more. The group got up to 6300+ members, before being shut down by Facebook as part of a spate of livestock group shutdowns. She went on to establish the Australian Speckle Park Breeders Discussion Group in July 2020, and this group had nearly 5000 members when she decided in August 2021 that after 5.5 years as the admininstrator of the two largest Speckle Park cattle Facebook groups in the world, it was time to hand over the reins and spend that energy focussing within the JAD business. Amy was also an active volunteer for the breed society, Speckle Park International (SPI). In 2020, she was co-chair for the inaugural year of the SPI Marketing Sub-Committee, which achieved some great outcomes for the breed including a re-brand, new website, and publishing of the inaugural 68-page SPECKLE PARK Magazine that net $40,000 for the breed society.