Sale-o! Sale-o! Chippy Boller celebrates 50-year career

There’s an old saying that roughly translates to – if you do something you love, you can’t call it work.

That’s fairly applicable to Cooma stock and station and real estate agent, Graeme “Chippy” Boller, of Boller & Co, who this month celebrates his 50th year in the job.

In 1973, straight out of school, Chippy found employment with local agents Pitt Son and Montague, under the tutelage of manager Frank Montague.

Frank taught Chippy the job and Chippy said he could not have had a better boss or mentor than Frank.

He remained a good friend until his death a few years ago.

Those early days for Chippy meant very early morning starts drafting livestock ahead of sales or travelling around the Monaro meeting clients and booking in their animals for sales.

Later, that also meant property inspections as Chippy’s business grew.

Pitt Sons was taken over by Elders in 1982, together with AML & F, and the three agencies became Elders Pastoral.

Chippy worked with the company as a stockman for a few years before joining John Mooney and Co in 1988.

A couple of years later, Chippy started his own business, trading as Boller and Company. The business has developed into a dynamic, well-established stock and station and real estate business, offering clients a full range of services across the Monaro, including livestock sales, real estate sales and property management.

Thirty-three years later and Chippy is still committed to serving Monaro landholders.

His 50-year career has shown him probably the best and most of what the region can offer.

This has included terrible drought years when farmers were happy to give their sheep away because they could no longer feed them, or years when the cattle market was so depressed calves could be bought for only a few dollars.

“Not many people new to the job would appreciate what we went through then,” Chippy said.

On the plus side, Chippy has also seen some amazing years like those just past, with record rainfall and record prices for livestock, such as in recent years’ annual calf and weaner sales.

He has seen real estate prices struggle, then boom, once again in recent years, with prices for rural properties unheard of even less than a decade ago.

As a local, and a member of Cooma Associated Agents, Chippy keeps a keen eye on the rural sector.

He has an intimate knowledge of the district’s needs and offers 50 years of experience to all he deals with.

Chippy has been a passionate supporter of the Cooma saleyards, which he believes are an integral part of servicing local clients.

“Where else can the little blokes sell if not at their local yards? They don’t want to have to ship their stock off and pay that cost and then receive less than they expected,” he said.

At this stage, Chippy has no real plans to retire – just yet, although with grandchildren to spend time with, that time might not be far off.

For the time being, like this annual calf selling season, it’s ‘Sale-o! Sale-o!’ Or business as usual.