John Bird
1957-2015
When John Bird, a young lad from Liverpool, arrived in Australia in 1979, he wanted to play professional football.
Instead, a start-up job in accounting led to a business career that transformed a significant section of Australia's overseas trade. 
He became the driving force behind the boom in the Australian almond industry, now the nation's most valuable horticultural export.
His vision - together with his financial, managerial and trading skills - is a key reason for Australia having the second-largest almond industry in the world. Production has increased from 4000 tonnes annually at the turn of the century to about 80,000 tonnes.
It was through Bird's early career as an accountant that he became enthralled by the business world. After six years at Red Tulip, Bird moved from confectionery to the nut trade in 1986 as a financial controller with Jorgenson Waring Australia and excelled in the trading environment.
After his promotion to managing director of Jorgenson Waring Australia in 1988, annual company sales grew to $110 million. While the homegrown almond product was limited initially, the volume of Australian almonds traded increased substantially, highlighting the potential for significant production growth.
Until the late 1980s, South Australia had been the centre of the Australian almond industry. However, as the first Victorian orchards established in the 1970s and 1980s reached maturity, the worth of the Sunraysia region for almonds was proved. The 1990s also brought greater efficiency after research to increase yields and quality. This, coupled with the modernisation of harvest machinery, provided the impetus for large-scale almond development and Sunraysia led the way with extensive plantings near Robinvale.
After a company restructure and name change to Select Harvests, new almond projects were established. Select Harvests soon became the largest almond producer in the country.
Bird was appointed Select Harvests chief executive in 1998. Bird shared his enthusiasm and expertise as an Australian Almond Growers Association member, putting the industry marketing committee on solid foundations, and later leading the newly structured Almond Board of Australia as chairman from 2007 to 2009.
John, with wife Julie, also went into the florist business as joint owners of the firm Say It With Flowers.
John Bird is survived by Julie, three children, two stepchildren, one grandchild and his extended family.