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Thomas Ellis Rogers - Born Kaeo 1937, died Rotorua 2013
Authors: David ElliottPublication: New Zealand Journal of Forestry, Volume N.Z.J.For. 2014, Issue N.Z.J.For. 59(2) 2014, pp 43, Aug 2014
Publisher: New Zealand Institute of Forestry
Abstract: Tom Rogers’ home town is Kaeo in Northland where he worked in the bush for a year before joining the Forest Service as a ranger trainee. After graduation he was posted to Ahaura in Westland, where he played rugby to a provincial and eventually to an international level as a Maori All Black. He also met and married Colleen, just in time to take her on his first posting to Kaingaroa in 1966. After a spell there as a logging manager, he achieved his first in-charge promotion to Whangapoua Forest on the Coromandel Peninsula. I first worked with Tom Rogers when I was a forester at Kaingaroa Forest in the early 1970s, and he returned to Kaingaroa as the Officer in Charge of Waiotapu Subdivision. I found him to be easy to like, extremely competitive and full of ideas. At the time, silvicultural programmes were expanding dramatically and he was able to recruit local dairy farmers as small but competent crews of cooperative contractors for winter pruning and thinning operations.