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An ‘ideas man’, ‘a pioneer’, and ‘an innovator’ are some of the words used to describe Stan in relation to his involvement in the irrigation industry, but he reckons he’s just the sort of bloke who can pick up an idea and run with it.

‘‘You see something that you could do, you mention you could do this, this and this, and then all of a sudden you are the man running the show,’’ Stan said.

Jokes aside though, Stan’s foresight and ability to see something that no-one else can, has meant he is largely responsible for introducing land forming to the farming community; and what followed changed the face of irrigation forever.

In the early ’70s land forming was seen as a revolution because it enabled farmers to move dirt around their paddocks to irrigate more efficiently. Stan used to spend hours at his desk, manually calculating how much dirt needed to be moved using rows and columns (the arrival of calculators helped the process).

Pegs and the scraper driver’s eye were used to get the levels correct, but there was still always that last little bit of dirt to remove.

In the late ’70s Stan saw an American film where farmers used a laser to help level the ground. He promptly imported one, and by 1981 there were 162 contractors offering laser levelling services in the area.

As larger areas of land were laser-levelled, Stan began concentrating on water delivery. Wider stops enabled farmers to get larger volumes of water on and off their paddocks. Pipes under laneways for water delivery soon blossomed into pipelines, and by the early ’90s Black Brute pipe came into being.

‘‘The first pipe and riser system I ever saw was in 1976 at Numurkah, made out of vat clay pipes. It always stayed in my mind and I always knew getting rid of channels was the way to go.’’

For somebody who left school at 14, Stan has achieved a lot — but says his greatest achievement is making it to 80 years old.

On December 1 last year he officially retired, but retirement to Stan means he is still doing some specialised work, just not as much.

He believes irrigation and conservation complement each other. He agrees in principle with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project but feels there is room for improvement.

‘‘On-farm works go hand-in-hand with water savings, and we have the basis to set the irrigation industry up for the next 50 years.’’