Leading the very experienced team of nine in the Victorian branch is Mark Richards, Branch Manager (Vic & Tas).

Mark is very passionate about machining and the Okuma brand.  His drive and enthusiasm is reflected throughout the Victorian branch.

“Our branch is the largest in Australia supporting customers across Victoria and Tasmania. We have a good depth of experience within our Sales, Service and Applications teams and the added advantage of immediate access to the Head Office team including National Spare Parts Department, National Technology Manager and our resident Okuma Japan liaison engineer,” said Mark Richards, Branch Manager Victoria & Tasmania.

"Our industry is moving quickly towards Industry 4.0 Manufacturing and we are fortunate that the Okuma machines and Smart Factory technology such as Okuma Connect Plan lend directly to support this advancement particularly in our major market,” commented Mark Richards.

Mark is ably supported in the Sales realm by Andrew Rankin.

Andrew has worked at Okuma Australia for over 3 years in both Mechanical Service and Applications roles.  As part of his career development plan, he has recently transferred into sales to support Mark and the increased levels of machine enquiries.  With this broad experience base, on one of his first sales in the new role, he put overalls on, delivered and assisted in the installation of the machine for the customer.

“My transition into sales was a planned progression as I wanted to understand all the Okuma machine models, their technologies and capabilities to enable me to assist customers and to ensure that they are getting the best machine and outcome for their specific application,” commented Andrew. 

Mark Richards is very well known to Okuma customers within the Victorian and Tasmanian markets and with the addition of Andrew to the Sales team we have a very accomplished group to ensure our customers continue to get the right advice for each and every machine purchase.

Our total customer support does not end there.  This Sales team is well supported by a very knowledgeable and experienced group of 3 Applications Engineers and 5 Service Engineers within this branch.  They also have access Nationally to Hideo Shimizu our resident Okuma Liaison Engineer and access to an additional 20+ Okuma Engineers across Australia and New Zealand.