Consultants | Dr Paul Brennan
Skills Competence
Technical skills
Dr Brennan was the leader of the Queensland Wheat Breeding Program and joint leader of a later incarnation, the Northern Wheat Improvement Program that included wheat breeding programs conducted by the University of Sydney at Narrabri and the New South Wales Department of Agriculture at Tamworth and Wagga Wagga. Seventeen scientists and technical officers within the Queensland Department contributed the whole of part of their time to the wheat breeding program. In addition, scientific skills were provided to the wheat breeding activities from a wide range of organisations/programs including the National Cereal Rust Control Program, BRI Ltd (cereal chemistry) and Sydney University and NSW Agriculture (varietal evaluation). Market information was provided by AWB Ltd and the domestic milling industry. Germplasm was provided from CIMMYT (International Centre for Maize and Wheat Improvement), ICARDA (International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas) via the Australian Winter Cereals Collection. Enduring personal relationships were developed with members of many of the cooperating organisations.
Dr Brennan was the Director of the Queensland Wheat Research Institute (now Leslie Research Centre) from 1994 to 1999. During this period he managed an annual budget of just over four million dollars Australian and a staff of about 70 scientists and support personal. He also retained a leadership role in wheat breeding at this time as well as being a board member for the Sugar Research and Development Corporation (SRDC) and a panel member for the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).
- The challenges at this time were to:
- manage a decreasing state government investment at QWRI,
- be across a very wide range of non plant breeding issues,
- develop variety commercialisation strategies,
- develop changed management strategies and
- implement equal opportunity and workplace health and safety arrangements.
- These positions required the development of a range of new skills which have subsequently been honed while acting as a consultant since 1999:
- reviewing progress and outputs/outcomes of R&D investments,
- technical evaluation of plant improvement methodologies,
- evaluating research proposals,
- developing change management strategies for plant breeding,
- reviewing R&D programs with particular emphasis on plant improvement,
- detailed understanding of the management of intellectual property,
- development of readily audited accountability systems for research and development investments,
- negotiating outcome based research and development programs, particularly plant improvement investments, that emphasise investor expectations,
- commitment to investor outcomes from investment in R&D.
Administrative
- Dr Brennan has a detailed understanding of the following technical skills as they relate to plant breeding through their deployment in his breeding program, through research projects or through technical responsibility on behalf of a research and development investment entity:
- plant improvement,
- biotechnology,
- pre and post release varietal evaluation,
- genotype by environment interactions,
- introduction of alien genes into crop plants through conventional technologies,
- doubled haploid technology,
- a wide range of breeding methodologies,
- breeding for durable disease resistance,
- developing breeding strategies for nematode resistance,
- molecular marker development,
- application of quantitative genetics to optimising breeding programs,
- plant improvement aspects of pest and disease management,
- cropping systems and
- plant health.
He also has knowledge of other aspects of plant improvement technology through his responsibilities with GRDC, HAL and SRDC for evaluation of project proposals. These include transformation (GMO), electronic data capture, genomics and database technology.
Presentation
Dr Brennan has considerable skill and experience in communication to producer, investor and scientific audiences. As a wheat breeder and QDPI administrator he was frequently required to make presentations on wheat varieties and the activities of the Queensland Wheat Research Institute to grower, technical and investor audiences. Paul Brennan has also delivered quite a number of scientific papers to national and international conferences.
Dr Brennan is conversant with PowerPoint and has used this to develop a range of presentations with the aid of a data projector.
Dr Brennan has excellent written presentation skills which are demonstrated in the large range of reports that he has produced particularly during his time as a consultant.
