Lisa Grech has worked at Fletcher International for about four years and says, after a long road, she believes she’s found her niche.

She grew up in Camden into a family with a strong market garden work ethic, and moved to Narromine at 18 when her dad bought a local property, moving into Dubbo to try some different roles at age 30.

“I grew up on a vegetable farm. I’d get off the school bus and me and my brother would be straight into things, packing lettuces, or cabbages, or whatever needed to be done,” she told Dubbo Photo News.

“We enjoyed it all, being outside, the freedom – it definitely gave me a strong work ethic. School holidays were spent on the back of a potato harvester harvesting potatoes for the chip factories, stuff like that.”

Lisa enjoyed being close to Sydney but also enjoyed living the rural life, gaining a real appreciation of the agricultural way of life and the importance of the industry.

“I grew up in the industry, Dad always wanted to have a cotton farm and that’s why we moved up here when I was 18. He bought a farm at Narromine so I worked there for 12 years, driving tractors and doing everything else – Dad loves his faming,” she said.

“It was good moving to Narromine, everything is on a much bigger scale here. Down at Camden we had different crops coming on all the time, but up here it’s like only every six months, you have your wheat, then you have your cotton.”

Lisa said she went through her school years with no real idea what she wanted to do when her student days finished, and because all her family members were working on the farm, it was something she just went straight into without really thinking about.

“I’m definitely a hands-on person, I hate computers and stuff like that, and I came here (to Fletcher International) because it was something different. I spent some time working in retail then heard there were some pretty good opportunities here and the hours were good,” said Lisa, who ended up in a slot on the harvest floor after three weeks on the job.

“I like working where it’s fast-paced and never a dull moment. The busier I am, the quicker the time goes and the more enjoyment I get out of it. I like having a little bit of variety.

“I’ve been up there ever since and really enjoy it. I work with great people, I’ve made a lot of mates, people from all over the world.

“A lot of the workers from overseas are quite funny and make you laugh,” Lisa added.

“It must be a big shock for people coming to work here from other countries, things are so much different to back home for them. It’s great to hear their stories and some of them have just had babies but have to leave them because there are these great opportunities here in Australia for them.

“They talk about how much they miss their families so it makes you appreciate what we all have living in Australia; we’re here at home and have these great opportunities, we don’t have to worry about travelling overseas just to get a decent pay cheque.”

Lisa has a second job working at a petrol station and says her main aim is to pay her house off, enjoying the fact there’s always plenty of overtime at the Fletcher plant as well, which she describes as “another bonus”.

“Yep, there’s always work, it’s up to you pretty much how many hours you want to put in – and if you want to climb the ranks, you can. I did Quality Assurance (QA) for the last two hours every day when someone else was unable to, so I’ve learnt that as well and I like that variety,” Lisa said.

She said the workplace culture was reason to work at the company all by itself, full of praise for the Fletcher family and how they treat their employees.

“I’ve seen what Melissa (Fletcher) does up on the floor, she looks after everyone, and Roger comes up every morning and walks around, says hello to everyone with a big smile on his face, and that’s important – it shows that he cares and he’s got his heart in the job, which makes everyone else want to put their heart into it as well,” she said.

“If people want a good job and they want to learn to work hard, this is the place to be.”