How long have you been skiing?
I have been skiing since 1965 at Falls Creek as my parents were avid early skiers in the 50s and 60s.
How long have you been a member at AAC Falls Creek?
I have been a member of AAC Falls Creek since 1974 (give or take a year)!
My parents signed me up, along with my brother and two sisters after they joined the club in 1972 when the new lodge was completed.
What made you choose our Lodge?
Parents joined in 1972 and purchased all the kids memberships a few years later.
How long have you served on our Committee?
I have served on the committee for five years at the end of this current term.
My youngest sister Jane and my brother in-law Jonny Harding have also served on the committee over the years.
Where do you live?
I currently live in Adelaide, although lived in Melbourne in the 60s and 70s, before spending 15 years in Hobart in the 80s and 90s.
What do you do when you’re not skiing?
I have a Master Degree in fisheries and postgraduate qualifications in business management and spent many years working for government in Tasmania and South Australia managing commercial and recreational fisheries.
In 2000, I was appointed the Executive Director of Fisheries in South Australia.
In 2010, I moved to lead Biosecurity South Australia to protect the State from vertebrate pests, weeds and exotic animal and plant diseases. I was also responsible for primary industry food safety programs.
Since 2019, I have operated as a self-employed consultant in fisheries and biosecurity services.
Hobbies outside of work other than skiing are fishing, travelling, clay target shooting and motorbikes.
What do you like about our Lodge? What keeps you coming back?
The Lodge is a great place to stay in Falls Creek, with all the amenities that the Village Bowl provides.
Belonging to a club is the best way to ski in Australia, both in relation to costs, but also meeting people from across Australia every year.
Enjoying apres ski at the Falls Creek Hotel (next door) in 2023.
It still surprises me when you meet a new member at the Club that has also been there for years and but for sliding doors you have never met before.
My family also enjoy the social aspect of the club and over the years we have proposed many new members to the Club, mainly from Adelaide.
Tell us something we might not know about you?
I was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2002 and spent a short sabbatical overseas studying resource allocation mechanisms for Aboriginal people to participate in commercial fisheries.
What is your most embarrassing (or amazing) skiing story (or stack)?
I was President of the LaTrobe University Ski Club back in the 1980s and the intervarsity ski races were held at Hotham one year.
We didn’t book accommodation, so when we got to Hotham, we moved to the back of the ridge and dug out a snow cave where four of us camped for the entire week. Luckily the weather was not too bad!
In the late 70s, a number of AACFC members built the first mono skis on 225 Rossignols. They consisted of a metal plate where two parallel binding held your boots together and this was welded to a short brace that was screwed to the ski.
They were great fun and fairly dangerous, particularly when you had to come to a full stop!
Of course this early innovation developed into the true mono skis developed in the 1980s and eventually led to the snow boards we see today – not that we are taking that credit!