Dear SFM Stakeholder,
After four decades of loyal service to Sydney Fish Market, General Manager Bryan Skepper has announced his retirement effective July 2019.
Bryan’s story is a true “mailroom to corner office” one, starting in 1975 as Assistant Accountant and working his way to the top, being appointed General Manager in 2012. He has led SFM with wisdom, skill and diligence, through a challenging period for the company.
Because of Bryan’s considerable involvement in planning and negotiating the relocation of the market to a new site at the head of Blackwattle Bay, Bryan will be retained by the company in an advisory capacity to assist his successor with progressing that relocation.
Bryan’s retirement leaves some very large shoes to fill and the Board has engaged a professional recruitment agency to assist with that task.
Bryan has made many friends in the seafood industry and in government/public service and I’m sure they join me and the rest of the Board of SFM in wishing Bryan a long and happy retirement.
Grahame Turk, Chairman
A message from Bryan
I have been privileged to have worked at Sydney Fish Market for more than 44 years and during this time have made many friends and much has changed. For instance, when I first started at Sydney Fish Market it was a wholesale market with a few shops. The auction floor was in an old building where the carpark is now located and the seafood was sold by voice auction with all of the sales recorded on handwritten auction sheets that were then used for the generation of invoices.
In the office, the switchboard was one of those old plug-board switches with wires criss-crossing as calls were manually connected. We later went up-market when a PABX switchboard was installed and we upgraded to using faxes to send the supplier reports to the fishermen.
Today Sydney Fish Market is an iconic, authentic, working fish market, owned by the seafood industry of NSW, and utilising the latest technologies including an online Dutch auction system. Furthermore, Sydney Fish Market has evolved from a purely wholesale fish market into a seafood and fresh food market-place, loved by the local community as well as being an international tourism destination.
What always kept me in this exciting and diverse industry has been the people. The professional fishermen, many of whom are multi-generational fishing families; the merchants and wholesalers many of which are family owned businesses; and finally, the staff at Sydney Fish Market over the years. The commonality of all these fantastic people has been their dedication and passion for the seafood industry.
As to the future,Sydney Fish Market is embarking on a fantastic journey with the development of a new Sydney Fish Market on the shores of Blackwattle Bay. I believe we have now reached the stage where it is time for me to retire from fulltime employment and pass the baton to someone else to take this project through the final approval processes and construction. However, I am looking forward to continuing to be involved in this exciting development through a part-time advisory role.
Bryan Skepper, General Manager
