It has been a privileged and wonderful working life

I was excited when, at the beginning of 1966, I was appointed to a lecturer’s position in the Mathematics Department at the Perth Technical College, located in St. George’s Terrace Perth. This was the year before the official inauguration of WAIT. On my first day at PTC I was told to report to the new campus in Bentley. Bentley I asked? Where was that? I was taken back when I made my way to Building 303 and saw the handful of brick and concrete buildings standing on the construction site, surprised at their location in a pine forest far from the CBD and in the middle of a sandy waste. Bare, grey and windswept indeed. Since those days I’ve had the good fortune to have travelled every step of the way with this amazing institution’s evolution from Tech College to University. The WAIT campus grew at an incredible rate, and the motivation was always there to improve oneself and to work hard with the ever increasing numbers of students while teaching and conducting research in the company of talented colleagues, many of whom became close friends.

I can honestly say that I have never simply enjoyed going to work each day – I’ve loved it. Looking back, it has been a privileged and wonderful working life that I’ve experienced: the collegiality, the opportunities to succeed and the hundreds of students, undergraduate and post graduate, with whom I’ve worked.