35 years and some amazing stories

*Names have been removed from this post to ensure anonymity as this post was for internal purposes only.

[Job position] [name] doesn’t like the spotlight but it’s probably something we should give him a bit more of. After almost 35 years in our business, having a chat with him can uncover some amazing stories about the things he’s worked on over the years across our business. Straight out of Murray Bridge High School [name] was, at first, a registered Ford Technician (Mechanic) but then started with us in 1989 looking after light fleet vehicles and anything else mechanical like brush cutters, back hoes, combo tractors with front end loaders and grass cutters. ‘Any equipment we had, we maintained and serviced it, 4WD articulated front end loaders were the cherry on top,’ [name] said. ‘This was the first introduction into tubeless tyres I'd seen on earth moving equipment, so we used to come on in weekends to replace tyres because it was a fun and unique job, and we learned some new skills.’

He also worked on maintenance for pump stations and pipelines such as Murray Bridge to Onkaparinga and Mannum to Adelaide and it’s this role that started him on the path to his current role. ‘Part of the duties in maintenance was that you could jump into the control room that manages these pump stations and pipelines and fill in for the day shift to help them out when it was needed,’ [name] said. ‘I just used to stand behind [name] in my off time and watch him manage the mini [program] system we had to work out what he was doing, ask questions, and then I just asked to be taught and kept going to learn more and more. ‘Being out in the field, maintaining the pump stations and pipelines, I really liked knowing how they operated and getting the full picture of how it all worked together.’ A secondment in 1995 enabled [name] to make a move to be part of the [name] team setting up the new control room, software and servers being centralised from the original Regional Control Rooms to the then E&WS depot at Thebarton, often referred to as the Red Brick Building. ‘I've done so much over the years, I just kept putting my hand up to do it all these past 35 years.'

And from there he became a permanent member of the [name] team.

Perhaps one of [name] best memories of his time with us so far was in 2012 when he submitted one of the last grants provided by the federal government to learn more about cyber security. He won the grant and was asked to attend a two-week cyber security training at Homeland Security in Idaho Falls in the US. ‘It was one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve had professionally,’ [name] said. ‘On my first day when I went out to lunch I noticed this young guy with a ponytail, tattoos and riding a Hiroshima screamer motorcycle (I love motorcycles), and when I got back from lunch, he was the Cyber Security Expert we were learning from. ‘He hacked into the Homeland Security network in 10 minutes using free tech he downloaded off the internet right in front of us, it was absolutely mind blowing. ‘On the fourth day we were split into two groups - cyber security and hackers, to simulate a real world experience with managers, pump room operators, SCADA operators and it was there I worked out how much everything is interlinked, what you can do, how vulnerable things are that don't seem to be and how easy it is to hack stuff.’

[Name] then brought those new skills home to the business and passed on his knowledge to implement some simple strategic tools such as doing away with generic user accounts in the [team] environment to provide us more security which helped form some of the basic improvements in our cyber security that we have today.

Due to family commitments, [name] is currently working in the Murray Bridge and Mount Barker depots to be closer to family and set to take some long service leave in July before he begins transitioning to retirement. Before then he’ll work on upgrading old legacy Remote Telemetry Unit equipment to increase the capability of our equipment in regional areas, among other things.

When he does retire, [name] is looking forward to spending time with his family, playing guitar in his Church Worship team alongside his sister, and taking his ex-drift VX Commodore SS for a spin at Tailem Bend racetrack.

So, if you see [name] around take the time to give him some of the spotlight and chat to him about all his wonderful experiences with us so far, you’ll be surprised with every story.

The group that attended the US Cyber Security course with [name] in 2012

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