About Ross

Ross Yarranton was born in London on September 9, 1952.  After a less than successful school education, he went on to college and eventually began a career at Shell UK in London, following in his father's footsteps in marketing and oil.  This stage of his career spanned about ten years, with Ross ending up at Shell's head office in The Strand, Central London.

In 1979 Ross moved to South London to work for his uncle in oil and gas at Star Fuels Oils Ltd, primarily in the LPG division, handling both butane and propane gasses.  This was where his interest in barbeques was born.  In 1989, having reached the heights of Sales and Marketing Director at the age of 35, Ross and his wife Hazel decided to emigrate to Australia to 'try something different'. 

After trying his hand at a variety of different jobs, Ross decided that working for somebody else would never be in his career plan, and he set up his own home maintenace business in 1996.  The initial break for the start of his new business came during a barbeque party at his home, when he thought to himself, 'who assembles and maintains barbeques in Perth?'  He visited the local barbeque store the following day and from that moment, his barbeque repair business was born.

Barbitec was formed in 2000 when barbeque servicing, repairs and manufacturers warranty work started to form the greater part of the business.  during this time Ross developed an interest in cooking - mainly the evening meals for his hard-working wife! Ross found he was good at 'experimenting' with food dishes.  This led to two years of recipe collaboration with professional chefs in Western Australia, and then the formation of the 'cooking' side of his business!  Ross then decided to combine simple barbeque maintenance techniques and cookery classes into one instructional class, which led to the idea of writing this book... The Drongo's Guide to BBQ Mastery!

Ross is married to Hazel and they have two adorable dogs.  His sister lives in Sydney with her family and his mum, now in Perth, immigrated to Australia a few years ago when Ross's father Peter passed away.

Ross is a fully qualified and licensed gas technician.