Allan De Boos has been working in the wool industry his whole career. As the Programme Manager responsible for the Woolmark Wool Education Course at tertiary level he shares his knowledge with the wool industry’s future designers and engineers. In this episode, he talks about the programme and explains the importance of educating students in wool for the innovations of the future.

About Allan De Boos

Dr. Allan de Boos is a graduate of the University of NSW (Textile Technology – Chemistry) and the Victoria University of Manchester (Dept Chemical Physics). He was employed by CSIRO Division of Wool Technology from 1968-2002 conducting research into the chemical and mechanical finishing of wool and wool-blend fabrics.

While at CSIRO he worked closely with fabric and garment manufacturers particularly in Italy and the UK, on the exploitation of SiroFAST and other systems for fabric objective measurement for fabric and garment manufacturing.

Over the last 15 years, Allan has worked for Australian Wool Innovation and is currently the Programme Manager responsible for Woolmark Wool Education Course at tertiary level. Over the past four years, he has delivered the Woolmark Course at Yantai-Nanshan university in Nanshan, China. The delivery involves two periods, each of two months, working in Nanshan. This year he will also be delivering units at Jiaxing University.

In addition to delivery of the course units, Allan conducts ‘course familiarisation’ sessions with staff from other Chinese universities so that they can evaluate the course and its materials for inclusion in the university undergraduate programme for textile engineers.

Allan also manages the delivery of units of the course at several other textile-related universities in China by staff from Deakin University (Australia).

About AWI/The Woolmark Company

AWI is the research development and marketing (RD&M) organisation for the Australian wool industry.

AWI’s mission is to invest in research, development, marketing and promotion to enhance the profitability, international competitiveness and sustainability of the Australian wool
industry and increase demand and market access for Australian wool.

Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and its subsidiary The Woolmark Company (TWC) represent the interests of 55,000 wool growers in Australia.

AWI is proud of what it has achieved for Australian wool growers. In FY17 AWI invested $71 million in 398 projects with 140 partners worldwide. These included leading international brands and sport companies such as Nike and Adidas who recognise their customers are interested in natural fibre, and in particular wool, in clothes, running shoes, and soft tailoring.

Connect with AWI and the Wool Education Course

Wool Appreciation Course

AWI website

The Woolmark Company website

Other episodes you may enjoy

#017: Angus Ireland about the latest wool research Edit

#064: Nora Kuehner explains the key trends for wool

#070: Mark Grave about the services of the Australian Wool Exchange

#078: Jimmy Jackson about wool knitting manufacturing in China

#086 Peter Morgan about the Australian Wool Export Industry

Cobus Ooosthuizen has always wanted to bust advertisement claims and proof them wrong. That is also why he took on the wool industry to proof the outrages claims the industry was making about wool as false. These claims about wool included that wool was soft, durable, cool when it is hot, warm when it is cold, breathable, UV protective, odour resistant etc. Cobus Oosthuizen tested a wool t-shirt during a 250 km running race for 6 days through the South African desert.

Cobus talked about his experience with wool at the last IWTO Wool Round Table in South Africa. This episode is a live recording from the event. Listen to the amazing story of how Cobus ran for 6 days through the South African desert with temperatures of 42-52 degrees Celcius to test wool’s marketing claims.

About Cobus Oosthuizen

Dr. Oosthuizen is passionate about change…”that moment when you discover something and you know you can never go back to the way things use to be.” It is his drive and passion to see everyone have moments like these, leading them to more productive, effective, healthy and purposeful lives.” As the founder of LifeXchange and owner of LifeXchange Solutions, Cobus and his incredible team of experts are leading both communities, schools, and churches as well as small, medium and large business and corporate clients into effective mentoring and change management processes!

Cobus is married, has an 8-year-old daughter, lives in Cape Town and is always ready to show you that you are more capable than what you could ever imagine!

Connect with Cobus Oosthuizen here

LifeXchange website

LifeXchange Facebook

The T-Shirt Cobus wore was from Core Merino

Cobus was sponsored by Cape Wools, Core Merino and NWGA

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Derelee Potroz-Smith is the CEO and Co-founder of Woolchemy based in New Zealand. Woolchemy processes wool with its innovative neweZorb treatment to make it super-absorbent. In this Wool Academy podcast, Derelee tells the story of how she and her mother came up with the idea for Woolchemy and how she developed the business over the past 10 years.

About Derelee Potroz-Smith

Derelee Potroz-Smith is the CEO and Co-Founder of Woolchemy in New Zealand.  She is a mother of three boys, an engineer, and an environmentalist. Her company Woolchemy have formulated a world first method that makes sheep wool super-absorbent for use in multiple moisture management applications. In 2017, Woolchemy was named finalists in the ’Going Circular’ category of the New Zealand NZI Sustainable Business Awards. Derelee comes from a wool producing upbringing and her mission is to pay farmers fairly for their wool clip and creating innovative biodegradable products for the better of our planet and our people.

Connect with Derelee Potroz-Smith here

Woolchemy website

Woolchemy on Facebook and LinkedIn

Other episodes you may enjoy

#033 Philippa Wright always brings on a new perspective to be successful in wool

#036 Dave Maslen about giving consumers a great wool experience

#041 Graham Ormondoryd on how wool improves indoor air quality

#051 Steve Ranford about wool research

#055 Ben Watts about how automation is helping wool growers on farm

#075 Ingun Klepp on how consumer research reveals new business opportunities for wool

#076 Stephen Wiedemann about Wool Life Cycle Assessment Edit

#082 Jacob Long about re-launching American Woolen

#088 John Roberts about the Woolmark Resource Center

John Roberts is the General Manager Eastern Hemisphere of the Woolmark Company – Australian Wool Innovation. IN his position he leads the Asian Woolmark offices as well as the Woolmark Resource Centre. In this interview, John Roberts shares insights into the Asian wool consumer and manufacturing markets. John also explains the concept and goal of the inspiring state of the art Woolmark Resrouce Centre.

About John Roberts

John brings nearly 30 years experience in the Wool Industry having worked in a wide range of industry sectors from primary production to processing, marketing and trading. He stems from a wool producing family in Binalong, NSW and started his career in the industry as a shipping and administration clerk for the Exporter Booth Hill & New Pty Ltd in Sydney in 1988.

Since that time he spent a number of years as a wool buyer in Sydney before moving into wool trading. He continued to expand his experience in the industry working as the Senior Trader for Agrisk Pty Ltd developing risk management tools for wool growers before moving to Dubbo, NSW as the Topmaking and Trading Manager at Fletcher International.

John returned to the Booth group (then owned by the German topmaker BWK) where he assumed the role of Trading Manager for both greasy wool and wool tops, based in Melbourne. He covered numerous key markets in his time trading including Italy, India, UK, USA Eastern Europe and China. As the groups processing expanded John was also overseeing the blending, processing and selling of wool tops ex Austops in Parkes, and the Geelong Wool Combing mill.

When Elders bought BWK in 2000 John relocated to Adelaide and was able to work on a number of new sales initiatives that linked his extensive global sales network to Australian Wool Growers via the Elders broking arm. He extended this work when he was appointed to the role of Marketing & Trading Manager – China, based in Shanghai for 3 years. In that time he initiated the first Australian wool auctions held in China, developed a number of new mill direct selling avenues, led numerous farmer tours to China, and negotiated the sale of Austops and Joint Venture of Geelong Wool Combing with the Nanshan Group.

John returned to Australia in 2006 in the role of General Manager for Elders Wool International where he oversaw the groups greasy wool trading and commission combing operations globally including the New Zealand greasy exporter J.S. Brooksbank.

More recently John was General Manager of Dalgety Wool Exports before starting his own agricultural consulting business Eubindal Pty Ltd where he has worked on export initiatives in the wine and wool industries. He has spent the last 18 months working as the Executive Officer of the Wool Selling Systems Review that was commissioned by AWI.

Connect with John Roberts here

The Woolmark Company website

Woolmark Resource Centre

Australian Wool Innovation website

Other episodes you may enjoy

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#017: Angus Ireland about the latest wool research

#057: Andrew Cuccurullo is repositioning the Waverley Mills wool blanket

#072: Matthias Boehme about key markets for wool

#078: Jimmy Jackson about wool knitting manufacturing in China