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CAMERON HOLT
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Cameron has had over 40 years in the wool and specialty fibre industry. He has focussed on the production and marketing of wool and other speciality fibres.
He was a Senior Wool Technical Officer with a
leading Australian Wool Broking Company for twenty
years. This has required him to become skilled in the
breeding and flock management of sheep and goats,
and in latter years Alpacas. His responsibilities
included, classifying and valuing wool in the company
stores and on the wool production farms for the
international wool market, advising wool growers on
fibre preparation, flock improvement, animal classing
and purchasing of stud stock and also farm finance. His experience also includes
management of the Mohair department of the Company.
Cameron has been responsible for fieldwork where fibre sampling of animals has
occurred, enabling scientific measurement of the fibres to take place. In 1980 he
then turned his attention to vocational training and research in the fibre producing
industries. Here he has gained extensive experience in vocational education in
these industries, by means of teaching in a variety of situations including College
based courses through to lecturing at Universities. He has travelled to Britain,
Canada, New Zealand and the U.S.A. where he delivered training programs in
Fibre Production. He has been instrumental in the development of training
programs for the Australian Alpaca Industry.
Cameron designed and implemented a research program on Alpaca fleece characteristics. As a result of this research project he developed a sampling procedures for alpaca fleece. This project set out to establish the validity of midside and grid sampling techniques for speciality fleeces. He has been a Competition Judge for the Wool, Cashmere, Mohair and Alpaca industries. He is currently judging for the Australian Alpaca Association and in his role as Senior Fleece Judge and trainer for AOBA, has been involved in the training of their judges as well as judging.
Cameron was Head of the Wool and Fibre studies department of R.M.I.T. University School of Textiles (formally the Melbourne Institute of Textiles), where he was responsible for the delivery of training for the Wool and allied fibres. He is currently conducting training programs on a global basis in alpaca fibre preparation and selection. Cameron is also consulting internationally with various alpaca organizations.