John was then offered a job in Egypt, where he drilled water bores in the Western Desert for oil exploration rigs, near to where World War II was fought, where there were still plenty of signs of the war. This job included the added challenge of navigating unexploded ordnance which were left over from World War II.

After a brief time back in Australia, John took a management position in Nigeria, where he ran a large operation on the Niger River, managing hundreds of personnel under very challenging conditions. This was no ordinary job—it was oil exploration in dense jungle, navigating a maze of tidal rivers while working from houseboats. John even contracted malaria during his time there.

Each of these experiences shaped John’s expertise and further cemented his reputation as a strong leader with great ingenuity, as he ran each operation smoothly despite the isolation and challenges.

Back in Australia by 1971, John joined Jim Murral’s operation on Stradbroke Island proving up mineral sand deposits for later mining operations. In 1974, John, always ready to take on a challenge, took up an exciting opportunity which presented itself and acquired three rigs and ancillary equipment along with a drilling contract near Rolleston, marking the start of his own drilling business.

Over the next 15 years, his company grew rapidly as demand for coal exploration increased, growing to 9 rigs and 2 cementing units. This period was dominated by coal exploration across Queensland and New South Wales, proving up coalfields in the early days, but also included seismic work for oil and gas and gold exploration in Northern NSW.

Deciding Chinchilla was central to all of his work, John bought a house and set up the workshop around 1982. By the mid 80’s, the Chinchilla workshop became the central hub of operations for JD Drilling, the go to place for machinery and farming equipment repairs, and John’s business quickly became one of the largest employers in the area, providing jobs and a start in the drilling industry for so many.

Throughout the later 80’s, the highly successful business was operating across the central Queensland coalfields. The infrastructure on Cooper Street grew to include JD Engineering, and stood as a monument at the entrance to Chinchilla.

In 1989, JD Drilling were offered a job in North Vietnam by BHP, a 4 inch coring program in anthracite coal deposits near Cameron Bay, about 7 hours drive from Hanoi. They shipped a top head drive Bournedrill rig via Singapore to the site, and sent 4 personnel including a mechanic, cook, offsider and driller.

As the business continued to grow, and the necessity for efficient travel became more critical, John purchased a 14 seat Cessna Caravan aircraft. With equipment working at Moranbah in Central Queensland and Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter Region in NSW, it made servicing and crew of the rigs very efficient.

JD Drilling’s early work was dominated by coal and exploration drilling, but by the early 2000’s it began to slow down due to the over-supply of proven coal reserves. Gas exploration was starting and the company commenced with exploration coring and purchased a Bournedrill 2000 rig, setting it up to drill production wells for Arrow Energy near Dalby. They successfully drilled gas wells for about 2 years, before pivoting to deep artesian bores for town supply, feedlots, piggeries and cattle properties. Around this time, the company sold most of the coal exploration equipment and downsized to 4 rigs and was renamed to Dynamic Drilling. One of these went to work for Origin Energy drilling monitoring bores and decommissioning old bores, with the Bourne 2000 working on artesian bores. Dynamic Drilling has continued to complete deep artesian bores to this day, with these bores being critical infrastructure for towns and major farming operations to support life as we know it.