Welcoming Max to the Oakbank Team!

The start of August saw us welcoming our newest member to the Oakbank team. Max Cowell is currently studying at Harper Adams University and joins us for the next 12 months as part of his year’s placement during the third year of his degree.

Max comes from a farming family based in southeast Essex where he has spent many years working himself, both on the family farm and other farms in the area. Max already has a history of habitat creation and management, having made and installed 25 songbird nest boxes and 3 owl boxes on his farm, as well as creating wildlife ponds and establishing wildflower plots. We will be making the most of these expertise over the coming months and have already roped him into some conservation work on the farm here at the office.

Max will be getting out on farm with our other advisors over the coming weeks, seeing and doing as much as possible in order to broaden his knowledge and learn from our team. Alongside this, he will also be involved in more technical aspects of our work, such as supporting baselining, measurement and reporting on whole-farm environmental performance. This will include getting hands-on with cover crop trials, biodiversity monitoring, and other on-farm projects that provide valuable data for land owners and land managers.

He will be helping us design woodland and conservation projects, create bespoke seed mixes and provide quality habitat creation advice. Incidentally, Max has also already proven himself as a top-tier tea maker (both in quality and quantity 🍵) and is offering his services to any visitors to the office during his time here. So if you do come in to see us, say hello to Max, - speaking to you, our customers, will be an invaluable education and will help make his year with us as interesting and enjoyable as possible!

Max already got involved in helping with a seed harvesting project from amazing chalk grassland margins!

We look forward to working with Max and are excited to show him the fantastic conservation work and projects that we are lucky enough to be involved in.

---

👉 Read about our previous placement student experience with Oakbank here.

🎓 Interested in joining Oakbank for a placement next year?

We’re proud to support the next generation of environmental advisors and land managers. If you’re studying agriculture, ecology, forestry or rural land management, we’d love to hear from you. Call 01480 890686 or email info@oakbankgc.co.uk