Community & Business
11 September, 2025
A recognition of long service
A DEDICATED 27 years of service was celebrated by Mareeba Toyota as their financial controller John Keal announced his retirement recently.
Mr Keal wrapped up his last day of work on Friday 29 August and was treated to a barbecue lunch with the whole dealership as they honoured his long service and bid him farewell, which he said was “really nice”.
Mr Keal was the financial controller for all of his time there, bar a few months, as he first joined as a registration clerk but was quickly thrust into the new role.
He said he loved his job, which pertained to overseeing all the operations of the business, in particular the finances, including the dealership’s spending and purchasing.
“I just loved the challenge. Every day was a different challenge and different circumstances,” he said.
“I was also in charge of the IT. When I first started there, there wasn’t a PC in the business. I built and installed all the PCs, installed the network, and up until about two years ago I maintained that network.”
Mr Keal said his fondest memories of his time at the company came simply from the people he worked alongside, which he shared some beautiful insight to.
“As you can imagine over 27 years, there was a lot of people coming and going,” he said.
“All the different personalities, and some you could see from the day that they started that they’d be going somewhere.
“They had the drive, the ambition, and ability, and sometimes they didn’t even see that themselves, but after a bit of time they realised what they can do.”
He holds great respect for dealership owners Graeme and Andrew Ford and cherishes the time he spent working there.
“Working for Graeme, initially as the dealer principal, and later on as Andrew took over, has always been great,” he said.
“They’re honest and fair bosses, they always considered what they want and what the outcome is, and that was your goal, to achieve the outcome that they want.
“I’d like to thank Andrew and Graeme for all the years that we spent together.”
Although he is still on long service leave, Mr Keal said he is basically retired, but he will have plenty to keep him busy in the free time to come.
“I have a couple of small businesses. One is Mareeba Trophies and Engraving and I’m also a marriage celebrant,” he said.
“So that should keep me relatively busy, plus I love fishing, so I’ll be doing a bit of that too.
“And my wife runs a woodworking business called the She Shed, and I prepare the timber for her. So, I’ll have more than enough to keep me busy.”
