I was born here in Lismore in 1961 from a family who lived here for 6 generations, currently we have 4 generations of my family living in Lismore.

I went to St Carthage's Primary School, then went on to Marist Brothers High School which is now Trinity. 

My great-grandfather immigrated from Ireland and landed in Sydney in the early 1880’s, he moved to Nashua on the Northern Rivers to help build a sugar mill for Tooheys Brewery. On completion of the Sugar Mill construction he worked on the construction of St Carthage's cathedral and he then became a ferry master working on the ferries in South Gundurimba.  

I completed my schooling in 1977 and began an apprenticeship as a boilermaker at Jason Fabrications in South Lismore. I enjoyed my trade and did well with my studies.

In 1983 I applied for a Teaching position with TAFE NSW and was successful and was offered a position at Granville TAFE. At the time I was the youngest engineering trades teacher that had been employed in the Engineering Trades area. I completed my Teaching degree at Charles Sturt University.

I worked at several colleges including Granville, Taree, Lismore, Casino and Coffs Harbour. Most of my working life was in Coffs Harbour and I semi-retired roughly 18 months ago. 

I was more or less doing that until I turned 60. Even back in 2009, I was actually awarded the Director General's Award for Excellent Service, Education and Training which was a great honour. It was nice to be recognised after almost a 40-year career in the industry. I still have the award here with me at home. 

(David receiving his education award in 2009)

I was involved with WorldSkills Australia, both as a national judge, mentor and coach. Worldskills is about finding the best apprentice in each trade in Australia and then having our best compete with nations from all over the world at the World Skills Olympics. I have been fortunate to coach and mentor an Australian Champion.

I had a great and amazing career with TAFE which I loved every day, however, I’ve spent the last 15 years in a more consultancy role. 

In terms of my time in public and community service, it started while we were living in Coffs Harbour and I was a part of APEX. I was president of the club there and it was really a great experience working with the young people there before moving back to the Lismore Area. 

Hockey has been a big part of our lives. I have played and coached for much of my life, including coaching NSW school boys teams and many years in mens, womens and junior teams. I have also represented NSW at Veterans.

Our move back to the Northern Rivers came after both my wife Robyn's father and my father became ill. We just really wanted to come home to care for them and be there as a support. My parents Valmai and Steve had been living in their house in Gundurimba for years so coming back home was a great way to be with them.

When we moved back, we joined the Rotary Club of Ballina at Richmond around 10 years ago. It was a really great way for Robyn and I to be active in the community and really contribute back to such an amazing area.

After nine years of being active in the club, I became president of the area from 2019 to 2021. In that time period, I really wanted to transform the club, and that's what we did by becoming much more connected with social justice causes.

I had a personal circumstance where someone I knew was murdered by their partner in a domestic violence situation. When I was at their funeral and the memorial service, I knew that being the incoming president at the time, I wanted to make our area a safer place for women so they would not be living in fear even in their own homes. We started the Say NO to Domestic & Family Violence and YES to Respectful Relationships campaign to shed light on this. 

From that small beginning in 2019, we went from a small club project to a rotary district project and then last year it was adopted in 16 countries with 30,000 Rotarians across 1,300 rotary clubs! We even were able to launch it at Parliament House last year, which was the first time in Australia that a campaign from the club had been launched there. That is impressive for our small area.

I've been able, through Superintendent Scott Tanner at the Lismore Police Station, to form a really good working relationship with him in combating domestic violence.

(David with Superintendent Scott Tanner at the Lismore station)

He and I were able to form a partnership between Rotary New South Wales and New South Wales Police. It’s really allowing this campaign to get ready to partner with all police jurisdictions throughout Australia. It’s a great way to get rotary working in the community with all the different agencies to raise awareness and educate the community about domestic and family violence. 

We have a prevention strategy to raise awareness within the community and also educate their community what's going on. We do that through having big community walks and other activities in towns and then we work with an education program in schools called LoveBites. It’s a program that helps teach primary kids and secondary kids all across the country about respectful relationships and how to recognise and have them. Our Rotary Club here in Ballina, helps fund that and Robyn coordinates it on the Northern Rivers.

So that's been a really big mountain of work for the last six years, but we're really getting to see really big results now. One of the most recognisable things from our campaign is definitely our purple shirts. We have what's called Purple Friday and around 90 businesses in Ballina and several in Lismore participating as well as the City Councils. It's starting to get out a bit more widely.

We have Adelaide now where a lot of businesses are doing it. The Cherry Street Bowling Club, they're the ones that enabled us to get out and give away roughly 1000 shirts for free to businesses, after we did a club grant with them for $25,000 for free shirts.

(On a Stop Domestic Violence march in Ballina)

Every Friday, you'll see those shirts which allow great recognition of the cause and give victims the confidence to go to the police to notify them if they are ever going through any situations involving domestic violence, and reduce bystander behaviour.

Currently, I am the District Governor for the Rotary District 9640, which comprises 58 rotary clubs spanning from the Gold Coast in the north, to Grafton in the south. Sadly it is a role with only a one-year placement, which I’m currently halfway through, ending in July. But I hope that I’ve been able to make a real difference with my position, leaving it in a better place than when I came in.

It was a bit of a natural progression after being president for two years in our rotary club. When I started we had 33 members and by the time I finished after two years as president, we had 76. Part of this attraction to members was what we're doing as a community by working with social justice causes. A lot of people were very interested to come and work with us because of what difference they’re able to make. 

I was asked when the time came around by everyone, why don't you look at being a governor and take your story further? That really encouraged me, so I put my hand up and nearly three years of training later I was in the role.

What that enabled me to do was take our cause to the next level and by being a governor, I was able to present a proposal to the other 19 governors in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. I presented to them that we all adopt the say no to domestic violence as a campaign and cause and they all agreed and was the first time in over 30 years there was a unanimous agreement. Being governor enabled me to do that and I’m so grateful for my position.

I travel to every club when I can. It's a bit like having a business and you have 60 franchises and you have to manage them and do all the governance, insurances and all the work that goes with a franchise.

My wife Robyn and I met socially when I was around 20 and she was 17. She came with me to Sydney when I don't think we were engaged. When I was able to get a transfer back to the north coast, we eventually got married in 1984 and have been together ever since.

(Robyn and David together for 43 years)

She is an Assistant Principal with behaviour and learning based in Ballina. She's a Rotarian herself and all of this work we’ve done is very much a team effort with her and I with the domestic violence campaign.

Mental health is a big area we both work on. We ran a big health symposium here after the floods. We were very concerned about the mental health of the Northern Rivers and it’s still not in a good space. In COVID, we worked with a local restaurant to give away free meals to those who couldn't afford food for their families, but also women and children escaping domestic violence. They're really the passions we have. 

Rotary is an amazing organisation and it’s the biggest of its kind in the world. We were founded in Chicago in 1905 and have 1.2 million members around the world in 221 countries.

We are a humanitarian organisation that's very much connected with helping those who need help and being a voice for those who don't have one. I’m so grateful for the change I’ve been able to make not only in our club and area, but Rotary Australia as a whole.

I hope that for the rest of my term as District Governor ending in July, and for years to come, I can continue to make a difference for the Northern Rivers.