Darral moved to Batlow (NSW) in 1974 from Sydney after leaving the NSW state public service. His first involvement with the apple and pear industry executive spanned the late 1970s into the 1980s. At the same time, Darral was a board member of the Batlow Co-operative. In the mid 1980s he attended Harvard (USA) to complete a marketing course. After that, he was associated with the Flemington Markets in Sydney for 3.5 years, then moved to a retailing business in Bowral. In 1996 he returned full time to his orchard at Batlow. From 2001 to January 2010, Darral was chairman of the Batlow Fruit Co-operative. In November 2006, Darral was awarded the Sir John Monash Gold Medal for Agribusiness Co-operative Directors in recognition of his outstanding service to a co-operative in Australia.

John was appointed by the APAL Board as an additional director with special skills. John has gained specific knowledge of the apple and pear industry through his chairmanship of the Australian Fresh Fruit Company (AFFCO) - a major network of large and progressive fruit growers which jointly undertakes marketing (e.g. exports to Europe & Asia) and research. He has extensive business and financial management expertise gained through senior appointments with Bonlac Foods, Bonland Dairies, Tesselaar Bulbs & Flowers and through his term as Managing Director at the Australian Wheat Board (AWB), from 1990 to 1997. Prior to this, John held a number of senior management positions with Griffin Holdings Pty Ltd, Sydney - an enterprise having operations in Australia, North America, Europe and the South Pacific.

Jos is a second generation orchardist with 35 years experience in the industry. He is one of three Driessen brothers who have 100 hectares of apple orchards in the Huon Valley, Tasmania and have owned and operated a packing facility that provided packing, cools store and marketing services for about 20 growers in the Huon Valley. Jos managed all aspects of the pack house facilities and services. The Driessen brothers are currently expanding into cherry production. Jos has been involved with the Tasmanian industry for many years and since 1996, has been on the executive of the Pome Fruit Council.

Phil has had many years experience in corporate marketing, having worked as a brand and marketing manager for seven years for Pacific Dunlop Food Group Ltd and Nestle Dairy Products managing Australian brands such as Four'n Twenty, Peters Ice Cream and Vitari.

He has extensive experience in the grocery retail sector, having worked for two of the top 10 national supermarket suppliers. He recently presented the marketing and promotional plans for the Pear Industry to both Coles and Woolworths. His family background is in horticulture and he recently created and currently manages Turnbull Orchards Fresh Fruit Exports. He also once operated an internet fruit delivery business from the Melbourne markets for two years.

Ugo operates an orchard near Stanthorpe, in the Granite Belt of south-east Queensland, in partnership with his brother.

They were leaders in using hail netting to protect the fruit in the late 1980s and when they expanded their operation by purchasing an adjoining property in 1990, they started on a path of closer plantings and trialing new varieties. During the 1990s they modernised all their original orchards. More recently they have planted fruit trees at high density. Ugo is responsible for marketing their fruit crop, which is via direct supply to Coles supermarkets.

In 2001, Ugo formed a consortium of growers to buy the local commercial cold store facility and had it modernised.

Ugo has held grower and industry positions from the early 1980s. He has been Queensland representative on the national apple and pear grower organisations since 1998 and he has been on the Fireblight Task Force since its inception.

Kevin is a third-generation orchardist, who with two brothers and his father, grows 42 hectares of apples in Victoria's Yarra Valley. They grow five varieties of apples and pack and cool store their own fruit. Since 1999, all new plantings on the Sander's orchard have been at densities at or greater than 2700 trees a hectare, such that now, 45 per cent of the orchard is intensively planted. They also operate a nursery to supply all their own trees. Rootstock is purchased off-farm. Kevin is active in the Victorian apple industry as a member of the Yarra Valley Fruit Group and he was a member of the Victorian Apple and Pear Growers Council.

Jason has worked on the family farm since completing a Horticulture Management Dipoloma at Lincoln Univerity in New Zealand in 1993. In partnership with his parents, he upgraded their fruit grader to start a small ocntract packing business, ‘Twin Apple Packhouse’ and in 1994, packed Pink Lady™ and Sundowner™ apples for export to Germany and in subsequent years, expanded the export destinations to UK, Europe and Taiwan for up to five different exporters in a season.

In 2006, the last year Jason handled Pink Lady™ for ecport, they packed 24 40 foot containers for exports to the UK market.

The packing operation also handled summerfruits, tomatoes and avocadoes for export, local or eastern markets.

With the decline in exporting of apples from WA, Jason decided to investigate the option of gaining organic certification for their 15 hectare apple orchard. He was awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship in 2008 to investigate this change.

Jason has served on the WA apple and pear council and was vice chair from 2004 to 2007 and chairman 2007/08.

Michael Stafford manages his family horticultural business, Stafford Orchards at Lenswood in the Adelaide Hills. He has an advanced Diploma in Horticulture and Rural Business Management and has had training in fire control and state emergency services rescue.

Michael has wide experience in many aspects of horticulture as a director of a horticultural consulting business, a member of the Lenswood Co-op marketing scheme and a director of a juice and cider business. He was also the chairman of APFIP from 2003 to 2008 and now chairman of the APFIP technical committee.

He has been secretary of the SA pome fruit improvement committee since 1977.

Michael has been on overseas study tours to Europe and North America and attended the 2000 IFTA conference in New Zealand.