Ulton and the Robinsons through the seasons

For over 30 years, Ulton has worked closely with the Robinson family, who head up a large citrus and cattle operation in Gayndah, Queensland.

The Robinsons began their journey with Ulton as an accounting client of former practice partner, Peter Sawyer. In time, Peter brought Business Services Partner Jamie Rach and Wealth Management Partner Kylie Wright into the fold to add their expertise.

“In more recent years, after decades with the Robinsons, Jamie has asked Business Services Manager Dean Johnson to get involved—along with Kelvin Pimm, from the Business Insights team,” said Kylie, who has worked with the Robinsons for upwards of 20 years.

Kylie began with Ulton in 1999. Back then, the late Frank Senior and his wife Allison were running the farming operation while raising their young children.

Sadly, on the 29th of August 2002, Frank Senior passed away at the age of 66, and the responsibility of Robinsons’ farm fell to Allison.

“As a young person at Ulton, this was one of those formative moments where I really saw how entrenched Ulton is in the lives of farming families. Through this incredibly challenging time for the family, Ulton was very involved in helping Allison make that transition into this new role,” said Kylie.

Allison was never one to shy away from a challenge. Prior to life on the farm, Allison worked as a nurse and worked her way up to become the youngest ever matron of a hospital in Australia.

“I really admire this woman,” said Kylie.

“She took over running this whole business. She was very hands-on—mustering cattle, managing the packing shed. She wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade and loved to throw down challenges,” Kylie continued.

So early in the piece of working together, when Kylie mentioned growing up on a cattle property—she knew Allison was about to give her a run for her money.

“Allison said to me, ‘Righto, come and work in the yards for the weekend then,” recalled Kylie.

“And that’s what I did. I stayed out there for a weekend and worked in the cattle yards with her. Branding, dipping—all of that,” said Kylie.

“And she pulled no punches. She worked me like I was one of her workers for that weekend. I think that from that time onwards, she just saw me in a different light. She knew I could put my money where my mouth was,” said Kylie.

Under Allison’s leadership, Robinsons’ farm had many successful years.

“For a long time, every year they had was better than the one that came before. They were definitely price-setters, not price-takers in the citrus industry,” said Kylie.

Riding the wave of many fruitful seasons, the Robinsons set their sights on building a new packing shed to replace their original one—which local folklore considered as one of the oldest working citrus packing sheds in Australia.

The Robinsons take pride in the fact they have always grown and packed their own fruit on their property—a move they believe equips them with better knowledge of their product and better relationships with their marketers.

“They took on a large amount of debt to build the new packing shed,” said Kylie.

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“And in the years that followed, things did get a bit tougher. Not only did they have this debt to service, but it became harder to keep that great run in the citrus market going too—either because of fruit quality, price, or both,” said Kylie.

It was also at this time that Allison came into some ill health, which required her to step back from running the business and eventually led her to retire earlier than she had intended.

“We’d been trying to talk to her about retirement and succession planning for a long, long time. But she just didn’t want to go there, she didn’t want to retire and just always thought she would be there to run the show,” said Kylie.

In Allison’s retirement, the Robinsons’ farm gauntlet was passed on to the next generation. Carl, one of Frank Senior and Allison’s children, took over running the family business.

“The circumstances meant that Carl was thrust into this role without the kind of preparation that a transition like this requires. He’s really had to hit the ground running,” said Kylie.

“But he's a great agronomist and he’s incredibly passionate about fruit biology. And what’s really pleasing is that he’s taken this situation in his stride. He’s employed an external citrus consultant and he’s also invited Ulton to be more closely involved in the business—to prepare the monthly budgets and cashflows,” said Kylie.

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“Carl is very committed to learning about the financial side of the business and Dean and Kelvin have been invaluable in working with him on that,” said Kylie.

Historically, budgeting and cashflow hasn’t been something the business sought support with.

“I suppose Allison just felt like she knew the business so well that she didn’t need to have the numbers in front of her every week. It’s taken a generational shift to make that change happen,” said Kylie.

Kelvin agrees that while the growth will never be ‘done’, there’s been a lot of progress made in the past few years.

“It’s been really rewarding to see Carl consider the financial aspect of the business more than ever,” said Kelvin.

“In the past, they were spending what they thought they needed to spend to run the farm. It wasn’t until the team of advisors had the chance to really look into the numbers closely, that the business realised—okay, what we’re spending on labour and fertilisers is far greater than it should be,” said Kelvin.

“In the last 12 months, there has been a big effort on our end into understanding why so much is being spent, and how we can reduce that,” he said.

“It’s been really satisfying to see the progress they’ve made, documented in the numbers. In our recent reporting, we can see the big effort to reduce the costs on those things we flagged—and we can see the difference it’s making,” said Kelvin.

“Carl now understands the importance of having that financial knowledge and properly using that monthly information to make decisions from,” added Kylie.

“When I first met Carl, he was a teenager. It’s been really interesting to watch him grow up into a really good business person. He’s made some really good, big decisions in the last couple of years. He admits his mistakes quickly and openly and he wants to learn—all of these things are really encouraging,” said Kylie.

For Ulton, seeing the evolution and progression of this fourth-generation farming operation has been incredibly humbling.

“Not only was Ulton very involved in helping with the transition to Allison, but the practise has equally been very involved in assisting with the transition to Carl. Having worked with this family for 20+ years, it’s really allowed me to see the scope of Ulton’s involvement in a client’s life, and how important it is for clients to have a trusted advisor that is there for the whole journey,” said Kylie.

“I am really interested to see where they take the whole thing next,” said Kylie.

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Written by Ulton Team

28 Nov 2025

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