It is believed that personality traits, as expounded in the Five-Factor Model of personality, influence objective performance data with respect to various occupations. It is hypothesized that some dairy farmers in S.E. Queensland will, by virtue of their personality traits, be more open to changing circumstances in the vastly different business environment of the deregulated dairy industry. By examining the personality traits of dairy farmers, and linking the possession of certain personality traits to either the possession of, or the ability to acquire, a pyramid of financial risk management competencies, it is hypothesized that some farmers’ competencies will be able to be upgraded easily, that another group will need to outsource services at particular levels on the pyramid (since they won’t have the ability to upgrade their competencies), and that a third group may be able to upgrade their competencies through education. These findings will have implications for the allocation of resources in industry restructuring programs.