Tony is an energetic emergency management leader, who is passionate about developing individuals and groups to support their communities during times of disaster. With close to 30 years’ experience working with Emergency Services in WA, NSW, NT and VIC at both operational and strategic levels, Tony has a well-rounded understanding of Emergency Management principles and practice in the Australian context.
Tony has had the privilege to work with a number of different organisations in a variety of control facilities across Australia, including small local SES units, local government EOC/MCC, Incident/Regional Control Centres and State Operations/Control Centres involving NSWFRS, NSWSES, EMV, CFA, FRV, WA Police.
He has filled roles with a variety of organisations, including as Regional Commander with NSW and WA SES, an Associate Director for Emergency and Risk Management in the higher education sector, Senior Adviser Resilience for Department of Transport, Manager Community Safety and Emergency Management Coordinator for Local Government, and Manager Emergency Management in the Victorian water sector. He is also a current CFA volunteer, filling the Captain role with his local brigade.
Key operational highlights include time spent with NSW State Emergency Service as a Deputy Region Controller, including a variety of operational deployments in different AIIMS roles, including being Incident Controller for storms, flash flooding (and even a tornado) in Northern Sydney, Deputy Incident Controller for flooding and the eventual evacuation of Hay NSW and as Operations Officer leading flood rescue operations in Clarence Nambucca.
More recently Tony has focused on supporting organisations in the review and implementation of their emergency management plans, applying best practice principles in a way that meets the capability of the individual organisation and its people.
Tony has been involved with the training and development of volunteers, L&D professionals and managers for over 20 years. He is well known for his high level facilitation and mentoring skills. His ability to question and probe helps ensure that a clear understanding is gained of what an organisation requires from their training. As a developer, Tony has written a variety of training resources and supporting documentation for local, regional and state levels for both public and private sector organisations.
To support his extensive practical experience, Tony holds a number of operational units from the Public Safety training package and has also completed qualifications in project management, security risk analysis, the Advanced Diploma Public Safety (Emergency Management) and a Masters in Business Administration.
From all these experiences, Tony believes that people are the most important aspect – and that to support and mentor is to bring out the best in them so they can feel more confident and succeed, that building effective relationships are essential to emergency management success, and that self-reflection
