The people at Ornatas drive change and focus on the future.
Ornatas is led by a team driven by building a sustainable future for seafood. We are dedicated to doing this, whilst creating real opportunities in global communities, and taking care of our environment.
Collectively the skilled team offer a wealth of enthusiasm and experience in science and innovation, a deep knowledge and understanding of the ocean environment and aquaculture systems, as well as financial, strategic and creative thinking to drive the company forward.
Chief Executive Officer
Scott Parkinson
Scott is passionate about science and the sea. He has worked in aquaculture for over 30 years, across research and development, commercial operations and sales. Scott is dedicated to a sustainable future for aquaculture, building the skills and expertise of the Ornatas team and engaging with communities to reach this goal.
Senior Management Team
Tony Barton
General Manager
Tony is the Ornatas General Manager. His role is to oversee core services that enable our workplace to function efficiently and our team to thrive. He is also responsible for business administration and risk management. Tony has a collaborative approach, working with his team and across all levels of the business to build the best processes and ensure the right resourcing is in place to get everything done safely and effectively.
Jennifer Blair
Hatchery And Research & Development Manager
Jen oversees the commercialisation of the lobster hatchery technology developed by UTAS at our Toomulla Beach site. As our Hatchery and Research and Development Manager, Jen manages special projects and takes the lead on our strategic research and partnerships, while also focusing on the establishment of Ornatas’ grow-out operations, which has become a top priority for the company’s future.
John Breen
Nursery & Farm Manager
Armed with over 18 years of farm management experience, John is perfectly suited as our Farm Manager. He oversees the production planning and commercialisation of nursery and grow out operations of the Tropical Rock Lobsters at our Toomulla Beach site.
Technical Team
Brandon Panebianco
Hatchery Team Leader
Brandon is our Hatchery Team Leader, who coordinates the hatchery staff tasks. Brandon is responsible for the construction of RAS systems and supporting infrastructure around the farm. He also plays an important role in assisting with managing the operation of RAS systems, animal husbandry and health management, water quality management and feeding.
Lachlan Davison
Nursery Team Leader
Lachlan coordinates activities with our juvenile lobsters in the nursery. He works across all areas of our hatchery operations including juvenile production, larval rearing, broodstock and systems maintenance. The major focus of his role is managing the juveniles in our hatchery which includes the operation of the recirculating aquaculture systems, animal husbandry and health management, water quality management, and feeding.
Sandra Villamil
Research & Project Manager
Sandra is our Project Manager for the CRCNA project. As our Research Officer she participates in the scientific aspects of the project, including experimental design, data analysis and communication. She also contributes to implementing our biosecurity and TRL health monitoring plans, which all underpin the provision of quality juveniles for raft grow-out research.
Hannah Lees
Administration and Compliance Co-ordinator
Hannah oversees our administration processes to ensure things run smoothly. She monitors stock, undertakes ordering and processes payroll. Hannah also contributes to site safety compliance and ensures all workers go home safely at the end of the day.
Katie Bowie
Senior Broodstock Technician
Kate works in the broodstock area of the hatchery. Her responsibilities include system management, water quality monitoring, animal husbandry, and bacterial sample collection.
Benjamin Smith
Senior Grow-Out Technician
Ben is responsible for ensuring our juvenile lobsters have the best quality water and maintaining our grow-out systems. Ben is playing a key role in the development of the grow-out systems, and ensuring our lobsters have a smooth transition into Growout. His responsibilities include monitoring of feed consumption, growth and health of our lobsters.
Jordan MacRae
Senior Hatchery Technician
Jordan is responsible for looking after our larval lobsters by ensuring the larvae have the right water quality during their early stages of development, and that their tanks and hatchery systems are kept clean. Jordan also monitors juvenile growth and feed consumption to ensure they are healthy and achieving known growth benchmarks.
Caitlin Kelly
Senior Feed Technician
Caitlin is responsible for coordinating the feed technical team activities to achieve the regular manufacture of high-quality larval and juvenile feeds, ensuring that our young lobsters grow well and move through their benchmarking stages. Caitlin is also in charge of stock management for feed ingredients.
Grace Othieno
Biosecurity Technical Officer
Responsible for ensuring the optimum health and quality of our Tropical Rock Lobsters, Grace collects, monitors, and reports farm water quality conditions, lobster health, and bacteriology. She also collaborates with our hatchery and farm operations to provide technical support for our commercial production aligned with our Biosecurity Plan.
Mitchell Johnson
Hatchery Technician
Mitchell is responsible for looking after our larval lobsters by ensuring the larvae have the right water quality during their early stages of development, and that their tanks and hatchery systems are kept clean. Mitchell also monitors larval growth and feed consumption to ensure they are healthy and achieving known growth benchmarks.
Daniel Stephens
Grow Out Technician
Dan looks after our juvenile lobsters after they have been transferred from the hatchery to Growout and ensures they are thriving in optimum conditions. He is responsible for water quality monitoring, distributing feed, health checks and benchmarking our juvenile lobsters as they grow.
Jessica Valenzuela
Hatchery Technician
Jade Quinlan-McRobbie
Feed Technician
Alan Brochard
Juvenile Technician
Alan works in our nursery team with our juvenile lobsters. His responsibilities focus on providing the best husbandry to our juvenile animals. His role includes daily water quality checks, ensuring tank cleanliness, delivering feed and ensuring optimal growth of our juvenile lobsters.
Harry O'Keane
Juvenile Technician
Thomas Oriti
Aquaculture Systems Operator & Maintenance Technician
Tom is responsible for our primary water supply on site. He ensures the highest quality water is in supply and that livestock critical systems are functioning properly. He also contributes to on site maintenance, filter backwashes and pump restoration.
Owen Bacon
Maintenance Technician
Owen has worked at our Toomulla site from the very beginning. He is part of the Maintenance team and is responsible from building our site infrastructure from the group up. His daily tasks involve responding to maintenance requests to keep on site activities running smoothly.
Brian Mealor
Site Caretaker
Dianne Wardenaar
Clerical & Cleaning Technician
As our Clerical and Cleaning Technician, Dianne ensures all common areas on site are neat and tidy. Once everything is spick and span, she assists with administration duties such as data entry and invoice handling.
Ornatas Board
Executive Director
Martin Rees
Until 2015, Martin was a partner in KPMG Tasmania for 25 years specialising in corporate finance and commercialisation of new technologies. He was responsible for the establishment of In-tellinc, a Hobart based IT incubator/seed investor which over the past 15 years has invested in over 40 start-up companies generating a number of national and global successes.
Martin has been a founding Director of a number of these ventures and brings these skills to Ornatas. He is also a Director of Foundry Pty. Ltd, TasmaNet Pty. Ltd, St. Lukes Health Ltd and Pets Domain Ltd. Martin and his family own and operate a vineyard and wine business in Relbia and he is currently Chair of Wine Tasmania.
Director
Brian Kohl
Brian is the shareholder represenative on the Board. He is a born and bred Tasmanian with a long history in community and environmental areas of work. He has an Economics degree from the University of Tasmania, and has worked in all levels of Government before moving to private industry. He is currently a shareholder and Director of a number of Tasmanian companies and spends much of his time sailing throughout the South East Asian region.
Brian’ s professional career has included roles of Senior Economic Advisor to both the Labour and Greens parties. Brian is currently the Director and CEO of one of Tasmania’s largest private equity hedge funds.
Strength in partnerships
Research Partners
Commercial Partners
Funding Partners
