I've been around the workforce for quite a few years - 32 years in fact. I'm currently happily employed as a Principal Consultant : Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) in a major government department and often wonder how I came to be in this senior role. One thing I can say with certainty, is that when I left school, this was not on the horizon!

I do remember spending a lot of time thinking about likely career paths, with the expectation of becoming a Clinical Psychologist and I completed a university degree with a major in Psychology. It seemed logical that there would be a neat and predictable progression along the path to becoming a Psychologist. However, life is full of twists and turns, often leading to unexpected outcomes. Kind of makes life interesting, doesn't it?

Planning is vital. Planning without room for flexibility is a recipe for captivity. I planned a career in psychology and as part of that plan completed my degree. What I did not appreciate at the time was that a higher education would open several doors, not just one.


Whilst undertaking my degree, and being another poverty afflicted student, I was fortunate in gaining a part time job in a residential home for disadvantaged children. The work was great and seemed to complement my studies well. There was opportunity to apply learning, including behavioural techniques. After a couple of years I became a full time employee and continued my degree on a part time basis. (This did not particularly please my father, who worried that it signalled a lack of commitment to my education).

My employment in this position continued for nearly seven years, at which point I became aware of a full time position as Director of a child care centre, which provided care for children during the day while parents were at work. In retrospect, this was probably the first significant diversion from my initial career plan. To be honest, I thought I was an unlikely candidate, but applied anyway. Lo and behold, I won the position on the proviso that I undertook a child care qualification. Given my completed degree and work experience, I was given credit for much of the child care course and was awarded the qualification 18 months later.


Now working on a good salary as the senior employee of the organisation, I gained a great deal of new knowledge and skills about finances, staff management, facilities management, government legislation and regulation and many other things. My work as a Director of child care centres lasted another 6 years before life threw up another unexpected opportunity.

The statutory government body responsible for regulating child care employed senior staff to monitor service quality and develop new programs across a State. One of these positions in Central Office was advertised, and I applied. Again, I considered myself an “outside chance”, but I won the position. I spent 12 months developing a brand new state wide program which again brought a whole new array of learning opportunities and contacts. My name was beginning to be known across the agency and a Regional Manager invited me to join their team as a Regional Coordinator working directly with services across a wide geographic area, including country locations. Before long I won this position on a permanent basis. It was during this time I had my first “brush” with occupational health, safety and welfare, being asked to establish and lead a team of 10 trainers to train 400 staff about new OHS legislation.

I think it was about this time I decided that Clinical Psychology was no longer the goal. I loved my work and didn't want a reduction in pay to become a Psychologist! Now and again I was asked to take up more senior positions on a temporary basis to assist parts of the organisation to work through various changes, crises and conflicts. However, I retained my position as a Regional Coordinator for another 6 years at which point a major organisational restructure took place. Consequently, the Regional Manager was called in to State Office to assist with strategic planning and implementation of the new structure and I found myself elevated to an executive level position (Regional Manager) for a period of 6 months.