Tamworth's Robbie Sefton AM honoured on Australia Day for services to agribusiness and the community

She receives her honours for her significant service to agribusiness and to the community in a range of roles.

Ms Sefton grew up on an irrigation property near Deniliquin and has many fond memories of playing on the swings at the Pretty Pine Hotel.

"We were bought up to be independent and resilient children," she said.

She attended the local high school in Deniliquin before heading off with her best friend in a red Subaru Brumby ute for a trip around Australia in the early 1980s.

Working as jillaroos on cattle stations in the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland and the Kimberley of WA was a foundation she said for beginning a career in marketing.

She got her break in the "very new" marketing industry with two former Hilton Hotel employees with the arrival of the America's Cup at Freemantle in WA.

"I went to Perth with two dresses my mother had made and a couple of lipsticks. I was the secretary that couldn't type," she said.

In those heady days, she got to work with Alan Bond and the last family-owned department store in Australia, Aherns, which was bought by Myer, where she was the public relations manager.

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"It was so much fun, but then I got my dream job in the world with the Wool Corporation as the marketing controller for apparel and home textures."

The collapse of the reserve floor price scheme saw massive personnel lay-offs in the Wool Corporation, and the next step in the journey was with Peters Ice Cream and the Connoisseur Ice Cream range.

It was about this time she met and eventually married Alistair Yencken, a woolgrower from Kojonup, about 260 kilometres east of Perth.

"We bought the family property and faced two floods and the Millennium drought. I ran my business from the farmhouse. It was pretty tough."

Ms Sefton said one of Alistair's mates had sent him an advertisement for a property for sale in the Coonabarabran district.

"I said to Alistair, why don't you go over and have a look. He was the only one to bid in at the sale, and we then owned a property five times the size of our place at Kojonup.

"He sent me a message by pager: 'pack your bags'," Ms Sefton said. "We trucked our 4000 Merino sheep east, and we were like the Griswolds, loaded up and heading to Coonabarabran".

Ownership of the Coonabarabran property was a 10-year plan that then became the purchase of two neighbouring properties just to the northwest of Tamworth on Manilla road.

Ms Sefton said her Australia Day speech would include acknowledgement and thanks to the people in her hometown of 'Deni' and the people she went to school with.

She is a regular columnist for The Land newspaper and continues her work in strategic communications and public relations.

Ms Sefton has held a number of board roles, and she says she strives to aim for sustainability that is dynamic and prosperous.

Her roles in business and community include:

Conservation:

Professional and Business

Awards and Recognition include:

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