Members were treated to a fascinating "member" talk on April 15th when Austin Taylor shared his work journey with the club - a journey that took him around Australia, to the Philippines, and eventually right here to Maryborough.
Austin Taylor's work journey started when he was called up to go to Puckapunyal to train for active service in the Army. Fortunately, instead of being stationed in Vietnam, he was sent to the jungles of Queensland where he started work in a Jungle training centre. In 1967, he applied for jobs with both Mobil and Shell, and got offered positions to both companies on the same day! He went with Shell and found himself in Blue Rock, Western Australia (300km from Perth) - a town of just 800 people. He could only rent half a house because the other half was being demolished! To pass the time, and improve his skills, he took up flying lessons and started flying in a Victa - then a Cessna and finally a Piper aircraft.Austin married Vicki in 1970 and they were transferred to Adelaide where he became a retail service rep. for Shell, supervising 20 service stations. After having two children, Jackson (1972) and Kristie (1974), the family was moved to Whyalla, where Austin continued his work with Shell and Vicki worked with Youthline. After a time in Whyalla, the family moved to Adelaide where Austin became Shell's Sales Promotion Officer. As part of his gig, Austin was responsible for managing Shell's charity work and he was successful in procuring one of the early Holden Commodore's for a charity raffle, which ended up very successful. Austin had to speak at the big presentation which was filmed by Channel 10 and included the Governor of SA and the Chairman of Shell, Australia.
In 1980, the family was moved to the Philippines as part of a Shell exchange program. Austin's family found themselves living in a large house, complete with a maid and a cook, in a country of extreme wealth and poverty.
The next move was back to Adelaide where Austin was given the task of getting Shell a high profile in the Adelaide Grand Prix. He came up with the idea of purchasing and flying a large Blimp balloon (advertising Shell) over the track much to the annoyance of one of the organizers who claimed it was not permitted, but the law sided with Shell, and the blimp achieved its purpose.
The next move was to Melbourne where Austin became one of Shell's National Advertising managers. During the 1980's, Shell moved it's attention to oil exploration, and Austin saw the opportunity to get out of the company and set up a small printing business. One of their gigs was to produce posters for NAB Australia wide, and another was to produce booklets for members of the British Commonwealth games team. Interestingly, Austin said he was able to earn up to $1500 a week just for faxing services, that is until the GFC hit and faxing died almost overnight. Vicki and Austin decided it was time to sell up and look for the best place in Australia where they could settle down. They used a set of criteria for what they looked for in a town or city, tried a number of places out, and finally settled on...yes, Maryborough!