Gratitude for the first 30 years

This week marks my 30 year career anniversary - it is amazing how time flies when you're having fun!

0n 3 February 1992, I started my first full-time job as a Graduate Administrative Assistant in the Economic Policy Branch of the Headquarters Group of the Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries and Energy. If you worked there, it was DPIE If you didn't then it was less flattering acronym 'DoPIE'.

I had landed in Canberra with no money; no car; no friends or family; and having never even been to Canberra before. As a first-in-family university graduate, saying no to a job offer didn’t even enter my mind. Still, my parents had instilled that sense of adventure and possibility in me from an early age. We had landed in Australia just ten years before and lived in the Brisbane migrant camp when I was aged ten.

1992 was a fascinating time for a wide-eyed 20 year old graduate. Australia had entered a recession but there was a sense of optimism and progress in the new Keating Government. The mantra was a new global and innovative position for Australia, pivoting to Asia; commercialising our research; building a skilled workforce; value-adding our natural agricultural, energy and mineral resources; building multilateral free trade agreements; regional development; and?boosting productivity.

It was also the year of the Mabo High Court Case, overturning the fiction of Terra Nullius; and the Rio Earth Summit, where the?United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed.

I had been part of the first graduate class of the Griffith University International Business class and this Australian paradigm shift was reflected in the innovative coursework. We learnt about the industry-union-government collaboration of the 1980s; sustainable development from the 1987 Brundtland Commission; global and Asian political economy; and Asian languages and culture (I chose Mandarin).

My degree and those formative years in Canberra gave structure and motivation to the global; inclusive; and creative world view that had been shaped from the time I arrived in Australia as a migrant.

Throughout the first 30 years of my career all of these issues have stayed with me. I have had the privilege of working in two Australian Government departments; a global professional services firm; my own consultancy; the offices of Federal and State Ministers; a skills agency; a local council; an industry growth centre; and a technology start-up.

I am currently writing a book on this privileged and amazing adventure I have been on, with some reflections on the path ahead for Australia and the world. Are we more global; more innovative; more sustainable; more skillful; more prosperous; more collaborative; and/or more inclusive than we were in 1992? My sense is that there is still plenty of work to do and adventures to have.

Thanks to all those who have supported, encouraged, guided and inspired me along the journey so far. A few special mentions:

My fellow Griffith student, John Van de Pol, who not only drove me to university each day and educated me in heavy metal music, but took me shopping for my first suit, tie and business shirt with his credit card.

My first Branch Manager in DPIE, Philip Harrington, who was incredibly supportive and dynamic.

A career-long friend who was my supervisor at the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) on my second rotation in DPIE, where I put a zoonotic disease kit together for meat inspectors. Helen Gannon taught me that you can be professional and still have a hell of a lot of fun.

Shane Campbell, who was Acting Queensland State Manager at the Department of Industry, Science and Technology and took a punt on this kid wanting to transfer back from Canberra.

All of my other managers over my career - Paul Flynn; Garry Waugh; John Dean; Jane Urquhart; Greg Combet; Allan Behm; Brett Schimming; Leeanne Enoch; Ben Pole; Miranda Taylor; and Richard Romanowski.

This won't be a comprehensive list (so sorry for those who I have forgotten in the moment), but the following are some of the people who have mentored and inspired me, often without a formal employment connection - Rod Glover; Sarah Pearson; Keith Dugdale; Paul Martyn; John Grill; Peter Riddles; Andrew Griffiths; Alf Garnett; Lisa Colley; Andrew Dettmer; Nixon Apple; Louise Earnshaw; Roy Green; Arun Sharma; Jamie Merrick; Tim Eltham; Chad Renando; Alex Blauensteiner; Chris Bridges-Taylor; Ingrid Burkett; Ifor Fowcs-Williams; Gary Langenwalter; Bob Willard; Louise Broekman; Laurie Hammond; Irena Yashin-Shaw; Tracy Scott-Rimington, Diane Hinson, Zoe Piper, Tim Mclennan, Jan Owen and Justin Hill.

Thanks and looking forward to the next 30 years!