"My Eyesight is Failing Every Day, but I think my Vision is Getting Stronger" with Mark Peart
“Being a pilot back in the 80’s, you were like an astronaut.”
Unlike today, being a helicopter (AKA ‘chopper’) pilot back then was a bit of a rarity.
“It was special.”
Mark Peart always had a love for agriculture, but it was his aviation career that set the tone for what has been to date, a diverse and fulfilling career. He describes becoming a chopper pilot as one of the more influential and defining parts of his life.
“I never thought I'd be able to become a pilot.”
“I'd always had a passion for aviation as a kid. From a little 2-3 year old standing at a fence watching planes takeoff, it was something I always wanted to do.”
“I love flying. I love the bush. I love the freedom.”
But it’s not cheap to get your chopper licence and Mark had to hustle to raise the money. He took out multiple credit cards and sold his horses, ute and saddle just to get the money together.
“That [hustling to get his helicopter licence] set the scene for me in life.”
“If you’re really passionate about something, there’s always a way to get there.”
But after a number of years and building a successful business, Mark felt like he was missing his purpose.
“I didn't feel like I was being useful. I just felt that there was something else I could do with my life.”
So Mark went about reinventing his identity.
“I was really excited, but I didn’t know what was in front of me.”
“I wrote a list of all these things I wanted to do in my life.”
“I still have the list of all these things I wanted to do and I tick them off. And I've ticked a lot off, and there's still a few more to go.”
“I think it's really important for humans to feel like we're living a useful life.”
Mark took on various challenges in developing feedlots and building apartments in the city and eventually went on to do his Masters of Business Administration (MBA).
He majored in finance and corporations and was fascinated by venture capitalists. During this time, Facebook had shaken up the internet and caused waves of change in social media. He was researching this when he first came across the word ‘AgTech’.
“I don't want to make it sound too fluffy, but it lit a fire inside of me. And it was like, ‘Hey, I'm going to build a tech business in the bush’.”
And that’s exactly what Mark did.
“Tech was disrupting every other industry, but it hadn't really disrupted agriculture.”
“I wanted to start something where we could solve a problem straight away for farmers.”
Whilst juggling being a Dad and family life, Mark battled raising capital, building technology without a tech background and getting the right people around him to get his tech business off the ground.
The idea was to create an alternative to traditional livestock supplementation and build a business around it.
“There were a lot of problems that needed to be solved.”
Fast forward to today, Direct Injection Technology, or DIT AgTech as it is now known, is still Mark’s primary focus. Providing nutrients to animals in innovative ways via their drinking water.
And that is just a part of Mark Pearts story. This conversation covers so much more as Mark chats about his ideas in purpose-led businesses, climate change, building a team and work-life balance.