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Craig Cowper
Craig was awarded Honorarly Life Membership at the 2022 AGM.
We’ve all heard the proverb, it takes a village to raise a child.
I think of ALGA as that child, being raised by a village of probably hundreds of volunteers over its life to date.
Volunteer is an interesting word, coming from the Latin voluntarius, meaning willing or of one’s own choice. Ironically, I think an ALGA volunteer is someone maybe not so willing to be a volunteer at first, that was then coerced, had their arm twisted, or had some other Jedi mind trick used on them, and next minute, they too have joined the village of willing volunteers.
As best as my memory goes, I’ve had some kind of involvement with ALGA for more than 10 years now … ordinary member, committees for branches, annual awards, Ecoforum, the special interest groups, briefly acting as CEO, a Director for 6 years, multiple Board subcommittees, and chair of the Board for 4 years. I remember having hair before I got involved with ALGA …
I look around this industry, particularly those already on the life member honour roll, and am still overwhelmed that I’ve joined their ranks with this award.
Special thanks go out to:
• ALGA and the kind individuals who nominated me for the recognition this award represents.
• the OG ALGA crew, Elisabethe, John, Rosalind, Karoline, Shardai, Michal, Tarsha, and the rest of the Robertson team;
• my bosses past and present, that have always supported and encouraged my involvement with ALGA;
• my work colleagues past and present, who have had to listen to me soapbox about the trials and tribulations of volunteering with ALGA; and
• last but by no means least, my wife and two kids … not once have they ever questioned or complained about me doing ALGA stuff, even the times I missed family events and commitments.
To all my industry friends, keep being the village of willing volunteers … and keep raising the ALGA child!
Kevin Simpson
In 2021 Kevin was awarded with ALGA’s Honorary Lifetime Membership.
Kevin is regarded for his unique energy and vision when it comes to ALGA and our industry. His enthusiasm in delivering ALGA Forums in Melbourne in 2010, 2011 and 2012 was instrumental in establishing the Melbourne Branch and driving substantial membership growth.
Kevin has been a fundamental member of several the ecoforum conference committees, including Fremantle 2016, Sydney 2018 and also Darwin 2020 (which unfortunately did not proceed due to Covid-19).
Annette Nolan
In 2021 Annette was awarded with ALGA’s Honorary Lifetime Membership.
I was very honoured to be nominated for this award. Volunteering for various ALGA committees, as well as the Board of Directors, over the years, has always been rewarding and a valuable return on the investment of my time and effort. I've enjoyed being part of the passion and commitment from both staff and volunteers, to improve the knowledge sharing and best practives across our industry, and the networking opportunities it has provided. It is a great industry to be part of, and encourage others to contribute to ALGA and strive for continuous improvement.
Ian Brookman
In 2020, ALGA honoured Ian Brookman with Life Membership. Moved by the recognition Ian said “It is a great honour to be awarded Life Membership. Having been involved with ALGA for more than 10 years - 6 years as a Director and 5 years as President - ALGA is definitely an association that is very close to my heart. I’m proud to work in an industry that is making a positive difference to our environment and to be recognised in this way by its peak body, certainly means a lot to me.”
Simon Hunt
At the 2019 Annual Industry Excellence Awards Gala Dinner which was held in Brisbane Simon was awarded Honorary Life membership.
Simon has over 30 years of contaminated land and HES management experience gained in industry, consulting and contracting. He is a Chartered Geologist, Certified Environmental Practitioner – Site Contamination Specialist and New Registrar for CEnvP.
Previously an ALGA Board member, instrumental in bringing ALGA to New Zealand and is a founding member of two ALGA Special Interest Groups 1) New Zealand – Asbestos Group and 2) Vapour and Gas. He has been intimately involved in writing contaminated land policy and guidance for central and local government and industry for 20+ years. He is Auckland based and is an owner of EHS Support New Zealand Ltd.
Elisabethe Dank
For me ALGA has truly become a part of my family.
It goes without saying that the office team are awesome! Thank you for making my job easier and more enjoyable. We have all grown together on this journey so much and have become workmates - and friends.
As to the Board of Directors, thank you for the beautiful presents and all your support, the Association will just grow and grow with strong leadership.
Lastly to the Members: The success of ALGA is really due to you - whether volunteering in formal positions, providing funds to support an endeavour or simply jumping in whenever asked..it is this that has continued to feed my energy and drive over the years. I hope you all know that in one way or another you have had an impact on my personal growth over the last decade, so thank you – without you ALGA is nothing!
Tony Scott
"I am extremely honoured to receive this award of Honorary Life Membership of ALGA; it really means a lot to me to receive this honour from an organisation that is very close to my heart.
When I joined the newly formed ALGA back in 2007, there was no single body that represented all of the contaminated land industry. But other industry bodies like the Waste Management Association and Australian Water Association would include contaminated land elements in the annual conferences, but these were added to the side; and those associations were focused on their core issues and really didn’t embrace, represent or provide anything for the contaminated land industry. While ACLCA had been around for some time they were restricted to consultants. So there was no group representing all parts of the contaminated land industry. The formation of ALGA, under the vision and direction of Peter Nadebaum, gave the contaminated land industry an organisation that represented all parts of the industry.
At that time, membership of ALGA was less 50 people, and a lot in the industry were initially standing back and watching to see what happened to this new organisation – would it survive or fail. In those early days I recall teleconferences with the whole membership invited, but under the leadership of Peter Nadebaum and with the tireless and always positive attitude of Elisabethe Dank and support of the early members (who all contributed in their own way), there was an excitement about what we were doing and what it could become. But I don’t think in anyone’s wildest dreams we ever thought it would become what it has, and especially not grown to its current size with its achievements in a bit over 10 years – truly phenomenal. It makes me very proud to have been able to contribute a little to what is now so significant.
Speaking of significant I recall one of the big decisions when I was President was the opportunity to purchase EcoForum, an organisation that was closely linked to ALGA and which had provided a lot of support to ALGA in the early days. At the time the ALGA funds were not significant but there was unanimous support amongst the Board to acquire EcoForum - and it is gratifying to see how ALGA has grown EcoForum to the success that was EcoForum 2018 – growth parallel to the growth of ALGA.
I would not have received this honour without support or a large number of people who have supported ALGA over the years. The list is too long but some who deserve particular mention are: Peter Nadebaum; John Hunt; Jon Miller; Simon Hunt, Stephan Pawelczyk and many more, too many names to list…. including all the early local organising committees.
While on early local organising committees, it is really pleasing to me to achieve this award with Tracy Berger. Tracy was working with me at Coffey when I her into setting up the Brisbane Branch of ALGA. There were some real struggles in getting things off the ground in Brisbane but not only did Tracy persisting, she actually increased her involvement taking on other roles in ALGA. It is really good to see her contributions recognised.
I also want to personally thank Elisabethe Dank for all the support she has provided to me in various roles in ALGA over the years. Elisabethe doesn’t know the word “no”, whatever she was asked to do (and much more) she always did it …. Absolutely amazing support and she really is the heart and soul of ALGA.
I would also like to thank my employer, Coffey who were always supportive of me, and still are, in taking on roles or doing tasks for ALGA. Without that support I would not have been able to achieve what I did. And it wasn’t just me that Coffey supported; Coffey were one of the earliest supporters one of the first Gold Sponsors of ALGA; and have maintained their sponsorship of ALGA since those earliest days.
Lastly, and importantly, I need to thank my family, in particular my wife Anna for all the support and encouragement they have given me. When I first got involved in ALGA we had 2-year-old twin girls and soon after we had three girls under three. Anna provided fantastic support allowing me to do my normal job as well as the ALGA roles on top of that – I know it wasn’t easy but there was always total support at home and without that support I wouldn’t have been able to put the time into ALGA and I wouldn’t have achieved this honour.
In conclusion it is so great to see ALGA the organisation it is today. It will always be close to me and I am truly honoured to have received this award.
Thank you."
Tracy Berger 
Quoted from Tracy's speech at the 2018 Annual Industry Excellence Awards: "I’d like to thank ALGA for providing the opportunity for recognition in the form of these industry awards, and to say congratulations and well done to everyone who was nominated. Also a big thanks to the QLD Committee for nominating me. I was in Canada when our QLD chair, Louise Cartwright, emailed me about the nomination. I hadn’t checked my emails much while I was travelling and figured by the time I got back to her they’d have come to their senses, but no, they submitted all the same, and I am most grateful for that.
All in all this is pretty humbling for someone who ended up in this business by accident. When I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Geology from the University of Calgary – more than 30 years ago - there weren’t many jobs around in what I had originally been trained for, which was petroleum exploration. I found myself in California where this shiny, new contaminated land industry was just getting started and they were looking for anyone with an earth sciences degree. And the rest, as they say, is history; interestingly I did end up spending a lot of my career looking for petroleum, just not in the way I had originally thought. So I want to also thank – and perhaps extend my sympathies to –my first boss and my first supervisor: Jean Kulla and Ed Stewart at McLaren Environmental Engineering in California. And to Rod Harwood and Peter Mirkov - thanks for taking the chance on me at Groundwater Technology Australia 23 years ago. And of course, I would never have ended up here at all if I hadn’t met my Australian husband Gavin while we were both working in Hong Kong.
I feel very lucky to have had the opportunities offered here, to have worked on so many different projects, and to have worked with, and learned from, so many amazing people over the past 30-odd years. I have only ever wanted to make a difference- so I guess getting an award from the leading industry body for my contribution to that industry is a fairly compelling line of evidence for that. To me the most important difference I could have made is to the environment and to the people I worked with. So being recognised as someone who simply tried to do what they said they were going to do, to the best of their ability, who strived to be fair and to treat people right, is surely the highest accolade anyone could want. Thanks again.
PS: even though I retired from paid work over 5 years ago, I’ve tried to maintain ties with this industry. Part of that is for social reasons – keeping up with the friends I’ve made and all the goss. But it’s also a continuation of me wanting to make a difference if I can. And since I have all this time on my hands….. It’s been important to me to try and give back to an industry that has given me my livelihood, however accidental, and I’ve done that through my involvement with ALGA – as a member of the QLD Committee, the Board, special interest groups, and through attending and participating in our monthly forums. So I’m here to say that my experience has been that the more you contribute, the more you get in return for that contribution."
In 2016 We Had 2 Members Awarded Honorary Life Membership:
Dr John Hunt for his outstanding support of ALGA as Vice President and President (2010 – 2014), SuRF ANZ Committee Member, Sydney Branch Committee Chair and EcoForum Program Committee Chair.
John has a BSc (Hons) in geology and did his honours at UNSW in 1975 in stratigraphy and palaeontology. He turned down an opportunity to do a PhD in palaeontology to become an environmental planner, then handyman (in the mining bust), then coal researcher with CSIRO, while undertaking a part- time PhD in coal geology at Macquarie University, and then a petroleum geologist with Delhi Petroleum in Adelaide and Esso Australia in Sydney. Eventually Esso moved from Sydney and Ihestayed for family reasons spending a year as a trainee bush regenerator, before starting with Groundwater Technology Australia in 1992. Several contemporaries from his undergraduate days at UNSW had gravitated there including Rod Hardwood who was the first MD, Lionel Etheridge, Malcolm Dale and later John Ross. From there he joined ADI Limited where he was involved in assessment and remediation of several former defence sites in NSW and Victoria as well as external work, and was introduced to thermal remediation. When ADI was purchased by Thales and the environment business shut down, he joined Thiess Services who ADI was working with on the Mortlake gasworks remediation project. He was with Thiess Services for 15 years, becoming its Tender Manager, Technology Manager and Remediation Manager. In that time he was involved in remediation of sites such as the Rhodes Peninsula and Homebush Bay, the Platypus, Macdonaldtown, Newstead and Highett Gasworks, The Penny Bay Shipyard in Hong Kong, and the Hunter River Remediation. When Thiess was sold by CIMIC into a 50:50 JV with Apollo Funds Management and renamed Ventia, he joined a head office consulting group of CIMIC (formerly Leighton Holdings) called EIC Activities as Principal Contamination and Remediation. He has now re-joined Ventia and retired to a 3 days a week positon, while still servicing EIC Activities. The other two days are taken up with grandchildren, handyman projects, bush regeneration and the odd bike ride.
Quoted from John’s speech at EcoForum 2016: “My thanks and appreciation to the Australasian Land & Groundwater Association for the honour and recognition given to me in making me an Honorary Life Member. It has been an exciting time to be involved with ALGA, given its rapid growth and enthusiastic take up by many sectors of the contamination assessment and remediation industry. I spent several years on the NSW committee, learned the art of conference organisation from Peter Nadebaum and David Bates, was Vice President assisting Tony Scott as President, and was then President ably assisted by Jon Miller as Chair and Stephan Pawelczyk as Vice President. In all that time I was always
surprised by the willingness of the Association’s members who allowed their arms to be twisted when it came to making contributions to ALGA’s activities. For those with the time and interest, getting involved in the Association’s business, such as organising state forums, organising EcoForum, contributing to the CRONICLE, or assisting in advocacy matters, can be personally and professionally rewarding.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Thiess Services (now Ventia) my employers at the time, who gave me the time to get involved and made a conscious and generous decision to give something back into the industry. To Elisabethe and the ALGA management team, my thanks for your professional and ongoing support in managing the data to day operations of the Association, and your diplomatic counsel when we strayed from the true path.
What about the vest I hear you asking? Well my wife Mary said that putting things in my trouser pockets was not a good look, so I needed something with lots of pockets to put things in and a fishing vest fitted the bill.
Finally I wish the Association every success in the future and may it go from strength to strength. If I had one piece of advice to give it would be that ALGA will go further by adopting a collaborative position with other industry players and leveraging of shared interests for the benefit of all.”"
Jon Miller for his outstanding support of ALGA as Treasure to Chairman of the Board (2010 – 2015), along with inaugural chair of the VIGGIM Committee.
Jon’s career has spanned such diverse industries as: Education, having taught in secondary schools in Lakes Entrance in Victoria and Fowey in the UK as well as at William Agliss TAFE, Tourism and Hospitality having run a pub in Oxford and been General Manager of hotels/resorts in remote locations at Albury NSW, Ross River Homestead in Central Australia and The Strahan Village on the west coast of Tasmania, as well as a diverse leisure business in the UK; Geodemographic Segmentation and Databased Marketing (it’s a long story) in Melďourne and Nottingham UK; and Environmental Remediation starting with Acqua selling oil/water separation technology before forming The Remediation Group in 2005 with Daniel Egan where he is currently Managing Director, doing a one year secondment to start up a biochar business in Gosford, and most recently adding a directorship of WJ Groundwater (Aust) a UK based company specialising in dewatering.
Steep learning curves have been the norm as he moved from one industry to another supported by formal education that has included a Bachelor of Education (Science), Diploma of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Diploma from the British Wine and Spirit Education Trust, Graduate Diploma of Business (Tourism), and the Company Directors Course. I put my hand up to be on the board of ALGA in 2009 and subsequently became Treasurer and later took on the role of Chair when John Hunt and Stephan Pawelczyk were President.
He had a particular interest in improving the governance of ALGA and played a significant role in ALGA’s transition to a company limited by guarantee, the establishment of Board sub committees, writing of the Board Charter and other governance documents, establishing the strategic plan, establishing an organisational structure with employees instead of contractors, initiating the Tasmania and Darwin branches, and more recently established the Interest Group called Vapour & Gas.
Quoted from Jon’s speech at EcoForum 2016: “There is a fine tradition at ALGA Annual Dinners not to include speeches where possible and to keep them brief where necessary. This keeps the focus on the important conversations going on around the room and avoids the awkward possibility of needing to tell delegates to quiet down or those giving the speech to get off.
It also relieves those who win awards without prior warning from having to think of something to say in a hurry. Had I been forewarned and been asked to speak I would have liked to have said the following: I am delighted to have been awarded an Honorary Life Membership of ALGA and would like to thank the people who nominated me and the Board for accepting my nomination.
All voluntary contributions to ALGA come at a cost of personal time and corporate financial support in some form or another which explains why employees typically need to gain permission to volunteer their paid time. In my case as a co-owner of The Remediation Group there are two people who need to be acknowledged. The first is my business partner Daniel Egan who has never, in the many years that I have been actively involved in ALGA, questioned the time I have spent. So thanks Dan for your support. The other is my wife Denise, who, unlike Dan, has questioned every hour that I have spent on ALGA matters! But then she has been putting the lion or perhaps lioness’ share of the bread on the Miller household table over this time. I would point her out for acknowledgement but as is fitting, she is not here tonight. Instead she is currently busy working in another part of the world in a different time zone. Nevertheless, for whatever I have done to contribute to the governance and activities of ALGA that qualifies me for this award, the organisation owes her a debt of gratitude, so on ALGA’s behalf I say, “Thanks Denise”.
While contributing to ALGA comes at a cost, it also comes with great reward in the form of a sense of satisfaction. Contributing to something that I feel passionate about has been its own reward. I would therefore encourage anybody here who has a bee in their bonnet about something to find a way to make a contribution be it via a branch committee, conference organising committee, a presentation, the Board, a Special Interest Group, an article in the CRONICLE or a good old rant on the Soap Box.
What makes ALGA so successful is the breadth of opportunities for members to contribute and to have their voice heard. These opportunities would not exist without the extraordinary organising capacity of our CEO in Elisabethe and her team whom she is always quick to acknowledge. It has been and continues to be a joy to discuss ideas and see them translate into action via Elisabethe and her team. So thank you Elisabethe for your achievements.
To my fellow Honorary Life Membership recipient John Hunt, this acknowledgment of your towering technical contribution to ALGA is long overdue, but what I would like to acknowledge is your passion for the welfare of the greater industry, something that I have had the privilege to experience close up. Congratulations to you for the positive impact you have had on the environment you care so much about and the people you continue to guide along their way. And finally, thank you to those still listening and have a great night.
In 2013 Dr Peter Nadebaum was awarded the first "Honorary Life Membership" for his outstanding support of ALGA in varying roles as inaugural President, Chair and Board Member between 2007-2012.
