A little more about me
As a teenager I began work during my holidays weeding in the tomato fields, planting onions and waiting tables at the local pubs.
While at Uni, I joined the Rural Health Research Team and later spent time coordinating rural placement for medical students throughout Victoria and participated in other activities to prompt Doctors to move to the country.
For a few years I worked in the Melbourne CBD (Central Business District) as a Temp through an agency and was privileged to work with companies such as Clarks/Hush Puppies Shoes, Oce Australia, Just Jeans, and Cadbury Schweppes - among others. I worked in roles ranging from retail in factory outlet stores to human resources and personal assistant roles to the CEO.

Returning to the country I worked for companies such as Coliban Water, Bendigo Brick and as HR/Risk Officer in local government establishing systems and processes from scratch.
For a while I have even turned my hand to sandblasting and painting and joined up with my dad and uncles to train and sell working sheep dogs from our family kelpie stud, Yandora Working Dogs.

I have worked in small training businesses developing manuals and training materials to help them become registered training organisations (RTO) and in not-for-profit such as community neighborhood houses and leadership programs.
In the west I worked in Mining in the organisational development field documenting processes, establishing compliance contracts management and was involved in setting up the financials and system for a mine start-up as a top line manager.

Over the past 6 years while settling the family back in Victoria I have worked with a practical innovation company who specialises in designing and manufacturing products to improve safety in mining across the world. Their key products are Laddertube escapeway ladders for underground mining and the new Bortana Electric Vehicle designed to cope with the underground mining environment and reduce carbon emissions underground.
While working there my achievements included:
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certification in ISO 9001:2015 - Quality, ISO 45001:2018 - OHS and ISO 14001:2015 - Environment,Scope, feasibility studies, source, design and develop software systems for Records Management, Plant & Equipment Management, OH&S, Reporting and Compliance requirements,Daily Human Resources, Quality, Internal Project and Risk Management
Through all of this I gained invaluable experience in what it takes to establish a business so it can be sustainable in the long term. I like to call it “establishing strong foundations” to grow and manage challenges as they appear - AND THEY WILL!!
At the end of the day this is why I can confidently assure you that there is very little in business that surprises me and I believe the only way to manage a challenge (regardless of how big) is to identify it and put a plan of action in place to get through it.