Steve Whittingstall, CSBP’s Operations Supervisor retires after over 35 years with CSBP.

After more than 35 years, CSBP’s Operations Supervisor, Steve Whittingstall, is hanging up his boots in September to enjoy retirement.

Steve started out as a Process Technician and Team Leader back in 1988, manufacturing superphosphate as part of the production team. From there, he went on to become the Regional Distribution Manager, Operations Manager, Despatch Supervisor and, most recently, Operations Supervisor leading the team at CSBP Fertilisers in Albany.

As noted by Steve’s colleague and Logistics Superintendent – Country Works, Richie Bassett, Steve has always been a strong advocate for CSBP Fertilisers in the South West region and is well known in the community.

“Steve is very passionate about protecting the environment and has worked tirelessly to minimise emissions from the Albany site over the years, monitoring the water treatment plant from work and home, and paying countless visits to the site after-hours to check on equipment and pond levels during the many rain events experienced in Albany.”

Steve admits that not many people get the opportunity to work for the same company for 35 years but, for him, it’s been a great and interesting ride.

“When I first started out, we had about 60 people working on site and we were bagging around 20 percent of our overall production, with each bag weighing 87kgs. As you can imagine, we were all pretty fit back then! Now there’s only seven of us on site and it’s all done in bulk,” Steve said.

“During my career, I’ve been fortunate to have always had good support from mentors and managers and given many opportunities to grow and develop. The great thing about this business is that there are always opportunities there if you want them.

“A definite career highlight for me was getting to sail on the Leeuwin as part of the Wesfarmers Management Training course, which took me back to my fisherman days before I started at CSBP.”

Steve notes there’s been plenty of changes throughout his 35 years and being there to see those changes – from new plants, the asbestos program, demolition of the old Albany plant and the development of the new ring road – as another career highlight.

“I’m also pretty proud of the fact that there have been no Lost Time Injuries under my watch since February 2006. I’ve always tried to look after my people’s physical and mental health, so to have that statistic is pretty rewarding.”

While he’s looking forward to getting stuck into a few renovations, and doing up the garden and a couple of old guitars, as well as riding his e-bike, motorcycle and travelling the world, Steve concedes he will greatly miss the people he gets to work with every day.

“We’re like a family really and the support I’ve had throughout my career has been amazing. There’s always someone there to help and we’ve always been a team. I’ve made a great many friends over the years and I will be sad to leave them when I retire.”