ALGA 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.””