Bruce Wills new Guthrie-Smith Tutira trustee

Bruce Wills new Guthrie-Smith Tutira trustee

Bruce Wills, farmer, owner of Trelinnoe Park north of Napier, and former national president of Federated Farmers NZ, has joined the Board of Guthrie-Smith Tutira.

With a strong and active interest in environmental matters, Mr Wills has returned to live in Hawke’s Bay fulltime and says that he is keen to add his expertise to the Board responsible for the 90 hectare Arboretum and education centre at Tutira.

Mr Wills visited the Arboretum, which is open to the public on Sundays until the end of May, this week and was impressed with the work done to date.

“The Arboretum is critically important as a national collection of trees that will become more valuable as they grow and mature,” he says, adding that as he was shown around the 20,000 trees and plants, he couldn’t help comment that it reminded him vividly of the early days of his own farm park 30 years ago.

Guthrie-Smith board chair, David Allan believes the depth of relationships Mr Wills has built with many organisations and within government in his former positions will provide useful links for the Trust. “We are delighted to strengthen our board with Bruce’s expertise, passion and connections.”

Mr Wills has stepped down from six years on the Board of Federated Farmers NZ, the past three as national president and prior to that, as meat and fibre chair.

In 2008, Trelinnoe Park won the HB Farm Environment Award. Mr Wills is chair of the NZ Popular & Willow Research Trust and chair of the East Coast region Ballance Farm Environmental Awards. He is also on the board of Motu Research and a trustee of Todd Foundation.

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