Experience

• 

  Aurizon

  • Narngulu, via Geraldton, Western Australia

  • Technical Trainer

    • Aug 2010 - Present
    • Narngulu, via Geraldton, Western Australia

    As a Technical Trainer I accepted new employee's from within and outside of the rail enviroment, to upskill those employee's with safe working practices within our industry. This also included new Drivers from both interstate and oversea's who have come into this region to work, and a mix of employee's for operational ground support from all walks of life and diverse backgrounds, from painter, carpenters, signwriters, automotive industry and building trades. I find it interesting to have a diverse number of people from different back-grounds, both locally and globally joining us at Narngulu to service and operate our trains. The last four years have been particularly busy with the ramp up of iron ore in our region with new employee's coming from the Britain, Ireland, South Africa, and America.

• 

  Westrail

  • District Mechnical Officer

    • Jun 1984 - Oct 2001

    Managed staff and all road and rail vehicle maintenance including safety, budgets, materials, enviroment and rail emergencies in a safe and cost effectives manner.This included dealing with internal customers and external customers to the company at those times, be it CBH, Worsely Alumina, Alcoa, Western Power, Westfarmers, Griffin Coal, Iluka and Trans-Perth rail system with the Australind and bus services .I am proud of the fact I have managed team's of people of up to 55 in number, for over 27 years in some very challenging times, of industrial changes, restructuring, which also included redundancies and redeployment, and still maintained a focus on safety, as a result, we did not have a serious lost time incident within the groups I managed. And during that time I introduced some new initiatives to alleviate the need to do accident repairs to wagon's as a result from derailments by providing "Bypass" hoses for vacuum and air braked wagon's. This helped by speeding up the recover period of track, and removed the need for staff to try and fix wagon's "onsite" reducing the risk to personal.

  • Leading Mechanic

    • Mar 1974 - May 1984

    Maintained all facets of Road vehicles, ontrack machines, civil earthmoving machinery and small plant. This also included the bus service from Kalgoorlie to Esperance to a high and reliable degree.during the period of 1973 to 1984. BeforeI left there were many challenges placed on myself and small group of staff during the upgrade of the Kalgoorlie to Leonora line and then Kalgoorlie to Esperance line Via Kambalda-Widgiemooltha upgrade whereby we supported the main work gangs when in the region. This upgrade of rail was from three foot six inches (3'6'' or 1067) to standard gauge of four foot eight & half inches (4' 81/2" 1435 mm) which was quite an achievement by all at the time with extra mobile gangs and machinery to carry out the task's. Ongoing cyclic maintenance of the standard guage track between Kalgoorlie and Merredin kept us very busy as a supporting role.

• 

  Westrail 1971-1984

  • Kalgoorlie

  • Automotive Mechanic

    • Jan 1971 - Feb 1974
    • Kalgoorlie

    The work within the Railway system at the time was very diverse, working on anything from water pumps, cement mixers, repairing all types of rail maintenace machines, including tampers, railsaw, and hydraulic rail tensors, to major track machines which were mechanicaly/hydraulic driven, and controlled with computers over pnuematics over the hydraulics, plus road vehicles of all descriptions, earth moving machinery, and road coaches which serviced the Kalgoorlie to Esperance run. Also maintained the then 25 tonne cantainer gantry at West Kalgoorlie which was upgraded to 32 tonne.

• 

  Australian Army

  • Puckapunyal Victoria

  • Craftsman and then Lance Corporal in R.A.E.M.E. L.A.D

    • Apr 1971 - Oct 1972
    • Puckapunyal Victoria

    Went into the Army as a Conscript, undertook basic training for 10 weeks before doing a course on APC's and Centurion tanks before returning home to Kalgoorlie and back on the job with Westrail. Whilst in service I was asked to run and manage a tool store, then moved into parts and equipment for the APC's & Centurion's which was a large and challenging task, which also provided me with a promotion due to my ability to handle that system, it also gave me an inroad to the system which many companies use today for appointing part numbers to items.

• 

  Western Australian Government Railway (WAGR)

  • Northam 1967 and then Kalgoorlie 1968 - 1971

  • Apprentice Motor Mechanic

    • Jan 1967 - Apr 1971
    • Northam 1967 and then Kalgoorlie 1968 - 1971

    Apprenticeship

• 

  W.A.G.R.

  • Kalgoorlie

  • Junior Worker Locomotive depot.

    • Dec 1965 - Dec 1966
    • Kalgoorlie

    Worked as a Junior Worker doing shift work supporting Driving crews adjusting their shifts and calling them to work on a 24 hr roster.