Jeremy Blockey 
45 // Gordonvale // The 20/20 Group Australia director and Cairns Chamber of Commerce president 

From marsupial research to farm labouring and championship swimming, there is a side to well-known Cairns business research analyst Jeremy Blockey that few of his business associates would know. Even his nationality. While Jeremy now considers himself an Australian, he was born in Germany to English parents. “Dad was in the Air Force and was stationed in Germany when I was born and now I have a lot of explaining to do every time I need to organise a passport or show identification,” he said.

The family returned to England soon after, where Jeremy completed a Bachelor of Science (Economics). But he yearned for a lifestyle change, so he shouldered a backpack and landed Down Under in 1986. He bought a car in Perth and invited some other backpackers to join him for the ride to Cairns. “It was a wonderful six weeks. For a Pom the distances are remarkable and I took a liking to the Outback, to the non-urban environment and to camping,” Jeremy says. “So when I got to Cairns I didn’t like it at first, I wanted to stay away from cities for a while.”

Jeremy then drove to Cape Tribulation but when his car broke down he looked for work and took a job at a tropical fruit farm, which has now diversified to become the Cape Tribulation Farmstay. He didn’t know it at the time but the couple he worked for were to become his parents-in-law. “Their daughter Merran lived in Cairns at the time but she would come to the property on weekends and on holidays,” Jeremy says. “We hit it off and I soon proposed and we settled in Cairns.”

Jeremy applied his university training when he joined Cummings Economic Research Services in 1988. He then joined the Cairns Port Authority, before co-founding The 20/20 Group in 2003. “Our thinking behind The 20/20 Group was not only the reference to 20/20 vision but the fact that we aim to help clients move towards the year 2020, which seemed so far away at the time,” he says.

Four years ago Jeremy joined the Cairns Chamber of Commerce as a board director and assumed the role of president early last year. “Cairns is a driven city. There is so much to keep abreast of and you need to keep your finger on the pulse,” he says.

Jeremy and his wife Merran have three children, Samuel, 19, Jordan, 16 and Hannah, 12.

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