Welcome Lochie Pettiford, new partner in Parkes Pharmacy

That's the message from new Parkes Pharmacy partner Lochie Pettiford, whose passion for rural pharmacy has brought him to Parkes and to the exciting new role.

"I grew up in Brisbane, studied in Brisbane, did my internship in Brisbane, but when I was at university I did a placement in Yass and loved it and from then I always wanted to work with that rural community focus," he told The Champion Post.

"As soon as I finished my internship I moved out to south west Queensland and did four or five years there in a similar town to Parkes and loved it, then I wanted to get to the stage where I had a possibility of ownership so I moved down here to work with Life Group."

Lochie moved to Parkes two years ago after working between Forbes, Parkes, Orange and Canberra within Life Group.

"I love Parkes, it has everything you need while still being a small town and it's quite refreshing to walk around and be able to say hi to everyone as it's a friendly welcoming community," Lochie said.

"It's always good fun, I love engaging with the customers and I think it's such a great industry where you can help people out and there's a bit of retail, there's a lot of health services but the basis behind it all is just helping people, there's so much opportunity to help which is awesome."

Lochie is passionate about Life Pharmacy always being accessible for the Parkes community.

"In any country town there's a shortage of health services," he acknowledged.

"I think the big focus is that we're in the community, we're here for the community and we want to make sure we're looking after the community, that's our number one focus so anything we can do come have a chat to us we want to be involved as much as we can."

What does having a local partner in the business mean for the people of Parkes?

"There will be more control having a local owner in store as we can do more and engage more with the community," Lochie said.