|
Now that I’ve thrown my hat into the ring of community service, I would like to share with you some information about myself. I hope in doing so, you’ll be able to gauge if I’m the kind of person who you’d wish to represent you as a councillor.
By way of introduction, my connection to the shire began in the early 1990s when I would visit family and friends who were living near Mulloon Creek. By 1996 I acquired some land there, and the following year I established a wetland and bird sanctuary on it. Over the years, I continued to expand the property into the ranch and farm I now call Landtasia. 
In my career, I’ve been an entrepreneur in high-profile computer technology enterprises for three decades. However, since arriving in the shire, my interests have shifted from digital technology to soil technology. This has coincided with the development of my organic primary production enterprise at Mulloon Creek.
In 2004 I retired from my position of 17 years as CEO of Infomedia Ltd, the global company I co-founded, to reside here full time and commenced a new phase of my life in food production. I still invest in software start-up companies, but mostly as a silent investor and mentor for younger people whose turn it is at bat. However, I do remain as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Infomedia, and love what we’ve achieved over the years, especially the monumental positive global ecological impact we have made and continue to make through its work.
I guess you could say that I have been at the forefront of a number of successful and pivotal technology enterprises, including Computerland - the world’s first global chain of personal computer stores (1977), bringing Microsoft to Australia and also founding Osborne Computers in Australia (both in 1982), popularising desktop publishing in Australia as the exclusive distributor for leading software developers Adobe and Aldus (1987), and in defining a new genre of software in the early 1990s that ended the annual printing of millions of thick paper automotive parts catalogues around the world (Microcat®).
Through that work and achievement I’ve developed a depth of practical and intuitive enterprise governance experience. Accordingly, I think it’s reasonable to compare the governance of a shire to that of a public company; both are large financial enterprises that have products to deliver, quality of service promises to keep, customers to please and budgets to balance.
 Beyond that, I think the comparison continues in as much as the situational spheres of a shire and a public company are always full of challenges and opportunities. In both, good Boards and Management resolve the challenges, and benefit from the opportunities by not being prejudgmental, inflexible, or unethical.
I see Palerang as having an ample supply of both challenges and opportunities in the coming years, but these are not in isolation to those the rest of the world also has to come to grips with. The key to success, whether for a community or a company, is to keep listening, keep analysis transparent, stay fair, and don't be tricky. Neither type of enterprise can succeed by burying its head in the sand or by trying to turn into a fortress when problems arise. If they tried to, they wouldn’t solve the problems nor would they see the opportunities when they present themselves.
Some of the things facing us as a community can be alarming; climate change, high energy costs, rising food costs, encroachment on our lifestyles, and confiscation of our liberties. However, if we keep our wits about us and work together constructively, we will fare far better than those shires or local government areas that don’t. In the end, it will be the middle course, the less extreme course of thought and action, that will produce the most positive, sustainable and broadly acceptable response to such important matters.
It is this middle course that I will apply my abilities and governance leadership for the people of Palerang.
|