Probably like everybody reading this today, the question is where did the year go? At Oceana, it has proven to be a very good and busy period. Oceana has been able to not only consolidate its position, but indeed grow the business amidst a range economic and natural disasters, including bush fires in Western Australia, major flooding in the three major Eastern States of Australia — Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria — with two of our major clients seeing their premises drenched several feet deep in flood water. 

Like the rest of the world, Australian businesses have also been caught up in the pressures associated with the global financial crisis, along with the natural disasters mentioned previously. In spite of this, Oceana has been able to achieve a modest growth during the period, with it now being the second largest WaterMark certifying body and number three in
GasMark certification.

As you may have read previously, our managing director, Stuart Henry, resigned his position with us on June 30, 2010, and he and his family have relocated to Indiana. It is important that we acknowledge and thank Stuart for his contribution during his time as our managing director and wish him well in any endeavours he pursues in the United States. We have also said goodbye to Mark Daly, who for a 12-month period worked at Oceana as a product certification technical officer. Mark made a worthwhile contribution to our growth and has left Oceana to take up a position as a manager at VIPAC, a local testing laboratory, and again we wish him well.

We have recently welcomed David Connelly as a gas certification client manager and Francsico Henriques as a WaterMark certification client manager. I am very pleased to have welcomed them to the Oceana team as they both bring extensive expertise and experience in product certification to Oceana and will staff the new office in Sydney, New South Wales, which I believe will allow Oceana to further grow our business in Australia.

I am pleased to report that Oceana has recently been through its four-year re-accreditation audit by JAS-ANZ and has satisfied all the requirements for re-accreditation for all three of our Product Certification schemes, that is WaterMark, GasMark and OceanaMark.

As reported in last year’s year in review, I have accepted a more hands on role following the departing of Stuart. This has been both challenging and rewarding and I would like to thank our very dedicated team, who have given tremendous support to me as we continue to build the IAPMO Oceana brand.