IAN McBean was only 22 when he first ventured into the harsh expanses of the cattle industry in the Northern Territory 59 years ago.
After 10 years, he became a pastoralist, and has since gone on to hold many prestigious and influential posts in the NT and wider Australian cattle industry.
His strong family enterprise built up Bonalbo Cattle Company in the Douglas Daly, which has stood at the forefront of innovations in grazing techniques.
Mr McBean's successes have accumulated in his recent invitation to become a member in the General Division of the Order of Australia.
The venerated honour cited Mr McBean's service to the NT livestock industry, the improvement to animal health, and his ongoing involvement with the live export industry.
He was recognised for serving as chairman and vice-chairman of the NT Cattlemen's Association Top End branch, of which he has been a member for 24 years, and his role on the National Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign Committee, Northern Territory Government, in the 1980s.
He also served on the Bush Fire Council of the NT.
While he said the invitation came as a surprise, Mr McBean, 81, was honoured to receive the membership he said could have gone to "a lot of people more worthy than me".
The award highlighted his strong drive to get the job done by being involved, which he said was the only approach to take.
"If you've got anything to say about how the industry is run, you don't want to go down to the pub and talk about it, you want to be involved yourself, try and bring about changes and see positive outcomes," Mr McBean said.
It also made the organisation more efficient, he said.
The NTCA has chronicled Mr McBean's illustrious career and life with wife Kay and their two children, and five other children from his previous marriage to Myrtle.
Born in the Riverina, NSW, Mr McBean was schooled in Sydney and was an overseer on a station near Moree before moving to a central Australian cattle property.
In the ensuing years, Mr McBean worked as a ringer and drover with long-time cattlemen Max Shepley and Don and George Booth across the Red Centre, the Barkly Tableland, and into Queensland.
Coupling his droving knowledge with horse breaking, Mr McBean bought his own droving plant in the mid-1950s and moved to Queensland border town Camooweal.
Work took him back to the Territory, this time further up north droving off Auvergne Station back into Queensland Channel Country.
During this time, Mr McBean drew Innvesvale Station in a land ballot.
He arrived at the undeveloped block only to find old, fallen-down yards the Quiltys had left there a long time back.
"There were no roads, fences, buildings or man-made waters," he said.
After building the station into a viable enterprise, Mr McBean moved on again in the 1980s to buy and develop Bradshaw Station.
His next venture brought him to Bonalbo Station.
Since moving to the 6500-hectare property 15 years ago, Mr McBean transformed the property's sorghum growing and farming paddocks into improved pastures to background young cattle for live export.
The remaining half of the station is eucalypt savannah woodland and native grasses, providing good wet- season grazing.
Cattle are bought in accordance with local demand and live export protocols.
In recent years, Bonalbo has adopted cell grazing to increase productivity, inflating its grazing space from 15 paddocks to 50, and carrying capacity from eight beasts per square kilometre to one beast per hectare.
Mr McBean and his family have embraced changes leading to a more modern pastoral sector.
"I started as a packhorse drover in 1956 and am now working on a computer running cell grazing operations," he said.
"I look back with nostalgia on the past but, by the same token, if we don't keep up with the times, you're lost in the dust."
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