David Witherdin is CEO of the newly formed Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRCC) which is tasked with reviving infrastructure in Lismore and surrounds. David was in town this week for one of many visits and took some time to chat with Sara Browne.

As a kid I always wanted to do things that were outside, I never wanted to be pinned down inside. I was into riding bikes, running around through the bush, I grew up on acreage. I was always out there doing things, with the animals or burning off, lighting bonfires, just having fun. I grew up on the mid-north coast, south of Forster at a place called Smiths Lake.

In the 80s it was a really small community, not even a corner store or a public phone or anything like that. We were about 30ks out of town. It was very much about making your own fun. We lived on a bush block but close to the coast so you could walk down to the lake or the beach. That made things like organised sport hard to do because we were out of town. I’ve got a sister who’s about 18 months younger than me. My father was a pharmacist and my mum mostly worked in aged care.

Once I got into school, I had a really keen interest in science, I loved science and maths. I also loved the hands-on stuff like metalwork and woodwork. Then I did some engineering science, that really opened my eyes to some possibilities. By the time I was about 15 or 16, I was really captivated by architecture. That was something that really interested me, all the design elements and influences. I did a couple of periods of work experience with an architect.

I used to work at a remote little general store at a place called Bungwahl. I started working there when I was about 14. It’s near Seal Rocks, miles from anywhere. It was about 10ks from home, I could ride my bike there. A husband and wife owned it and he was an architect who worked on his own. I started doing some drafting for him. After school, he’d give me some work tracing plans and all sorts of things. I had a keen interest, I was quite passionate about it and I had a steady hand as well. I enjoyed all the engineering and architectural drafting and producing really nice work.

1988, Forster High, David second from right

So, I always thought that’s what I’d do – I’d become an architect. It probably wasn’t until right at the end of year 12 when I learnt a bit more about engineering and what that would open up. I thought – architects are great, they make all these good-looking things – but engineers are the ones who actually make them stand up. I thought maybe that was something of more value. So, I went down that pathway.

I went to Newcastle to study. The first degree I enrolled in was mining engineering which was two years at Newcastle and two years at UNSW. Then at the end of my first year at uni, I went to work in the upper Hunter Valley at an open cut Japanese owned mine. I learnt more about things and had the opportunity to work with other engineers and that opened my eyes further to possibilities. I then applied to change my degree to civil engineering which is much broader. It covers everything from road and transportation engineering, hydrology, flood modelling, steel and concrete design, geotechnical design – a whole gamut of things.

As I worked my way through that degree, what I was really passionate about was water. Everything from water and sewer systems to rivers and how we manage those. That was something I was keenly interested in. I remember doing a final year design subject, we had people come into uni who were leaders in their field and they led the design challenges we had. We got to know the chief engineer for Hunter Water, which is similar to Rous Water here. I got to know him and was finishing uni at the end of 94 and was lucky enough to be offered a role there in the mining industry with Caterpillar midway through my last year.

It was great, got me into the workforce but it didn’t really excite me. It wasn’t something I was passionate about. After about 12 months I got a call from that chief engineer from Hunter Water, he said he had an opportunity going. I had a chat with him and that opened the door to get into that water industry.

At the time, I was taking a big step back in pay but that was never really an issue because I thought it was something that I was really excited about and wanted to learn more about. I was fortunate at the time I came into that, as a new graduate engineer, I was able to get exposure to the whole spectrum of what Hunter Water did. I was also fortunate to work with some really forward-thinking people, I got thrown in deep in different areas. I had opportunities to work in the industry and engage with other agencies right across Australia. I got to do consulting work in the US as well and at a young age, I was in a large leadership role. I was leading a large team of trades and non-trades people who were doing day to day operations and maintenance.

You’re doing that on a 24/7 basis, dealing with major infrastructure phase when things go wrong. So, you have a major water pipeline go down, you’ve got 100,000 people relying on that, so that pressure of dealing with those sort of things…managing dams. I was sort of thrown into a leadership role and charged with leading people who were much older, much more experienced and much more knowledgeable than I was. You’ve got to realise that you don’t have all the answers and you don’t have to, you’ve got the capability. My role was to embrace that and engage it and bring that team together to find the solutions and create a pathway for them.

As a leader, you’ve got to give people a vision of where you want to be and then work with them to find the answers to get there. I think too many young grads – not just engineering but all disciplines – come out thinking they know all this stuff. There is just no substitute for experience, being in difficult situations and having hard conversations.

I reflect on that now and when I was in my mid-30s I thought I knew everything. Every time since, I look back and go wow – if only I knew some of this stuff then. There is no substitute for time. That’s why having diversity in a team – in terms of age, experience, gender, all those things – the more you have that, the better outcomes you get.

I’ve been married twice. I met my first wife when I was at uni, she was in the social science area. She was 18, I was 19. We had kids when we were 27 and 28, we have two daughters two years apart. They’re now 20 and 22, both at uni. The eldest is doing law at Newcastle and my middle daughter is studying earth sciences in Melbourne. I don’t know if it was my influence. She didn’t even discuss it with me, I found out about it afterwards. Given my role, I’ve been the Soil Conversation Commissioner for about the last nine years, it would have been nice to have had a chat about it but hey, that’s kids. The good thing is she’s really enjoying it, highly engaged with it, and I think it’s a great time for anybody doing environmental science, environmental engineering, any of those fields – those people are the ones who are going to lead us through some of the challenges into the future.

One of the funny things is both my elder daughters have boyfriends who are civil engineers, which is really odd. It’s nice actually because having three daughters, I’m the only guy about the house, so it’s nice to have that engagement with them, we can talk about some common things. Although I don’t like to be talking about work all the time. It’s nice to impart a bit of wisdom when you get the opportunity.

At the moment, work is really hectic. I spent the last five years as CEO of Local Land Services, leading a large organisation of about 1100 people across the state, supporting land holders through what have been difficult times. We had drought, bush fires then into floods, so not just working with agriculture but environment as well. It’s a really diverse portfolio, challenging governance arrangements. I always said whatever I do after this will seem easy by comparison… but I didn’t expect this.

It's hectic because I’m not just juggling this but there’s another role I’ve been doing, continuing to do part of public works and the soil conservation service in tandem with this. We’re trying to fly this plane as we build it. I’ve always had a good ability, and you learn it over time, to be able to switch off and disengage from work. I’m pretty firm with the limits I set myself.

David far right, 1988

I’m really keen on exercise. Cycling is something I’ve done since I was 14, it’s been a key part of my life. Every opportunity I get, I’m on a bike. Mountain bike, road bikes, I’ve been racing too. I do that every day that I can. I’ve had some challenges with it. Late in 2019 I had a major accident and broke my neck. I fractured my C2, it’s known as the hangman’s fracture. Normally, it’s catastrophic. I wasn’t in hospital for a long time but I was in a neck brace from my chin down to my chest and up the back of my head for nearly three months. That was right through that summer of the bush fires. I was off work for about three months until I could get out of the brace. It was extremely uncomfortable as you can imagine, through that hot summer. It was very painful as well. I was knocked out in the accident, I had quite a head injury. The structural integrity of my neck was a real concern early on.

Thankfully, I’ve recovered absolutely 100% from it. I got back on the bike the very day the specialist said, you’re good to go. That was about six months after the accident. I was a bit scared but I thought – if I don’t do this now, I never will. I’d had plenty of accidents before, years of racing, it’s a dangerous thing but you never expect to break your neck. It was a low point but it gave me a lot of time to reflect on things and what’s important.

I always claim that early part of the day. I’m out of bed well before sunrise every morning so if I’m not on the bike, like if I’m travelling this week, I’m out for a run. As a bare minimum, I get out for walk if I’m home, walk the dog, walk my daughter to school. I switch off from technology. Emails can be pervasive, a constant stream of text messages. Certain things you’ve got to deal with, I go hard during the day, but when I get home, I’m not going to open emails all night or over the weekend. You need that time, you’ve got to pace yourself.

I think my staff would say I’m inclusive, I’m flexible, I don’t work with a hierarchy. I like to work very flat. My style is to really work with them and look to them to form solutions. I’m not someone who comes in and says here’s how we’re going to do it. I like to surround myself with really capable people. That’s why they’re there. I’m quick to make decisions when they need to be made, I don’t hang back with that at all. Sometimes you need to be absolutely decisive and directive. I’m really flexible about the way I work with people. What we need to set is expectations – here’s where we’re going - how we get there – I’m totally open-minded to that. How you work is up to you. There’d be a few things that are not negotiable but I think most people really value freedom and flexibility. They want to be able to do things their way.

I’ve been fortunate to lead teams that have achieved really great results. And we’ve been seen to do that by customers, stakeholders, surveys we’ve done, we’ve got a high level of engagement. You reflect back and wonder how it happened and think perhaps I didn’t really do much but what you do as a leader is to create an environment for things to happen. You set that scene and give people safety to make a mistake, we’ll learn from that and we’ll move forward. If we’re back here next month and you made that same mistake, we’ll have a further discussion. If you do it again, we’ve probably got a problem but you’ve got to create safety for teams and people.

People often lack confidence, you can see their clear ability to do things but they doubt themselves. I’ve really enjoyed, probably the last five years of my career, identifying high potential people. I can see they’ve got the ability to go a long way and I’m keen to tap into what they’ve got. A number of people I’ve worked with in mentoring relationships have gone off to all sorts of different things now. People have reached out to me too, and have been keen to work with me as part of that and I find that really invigorating. There are a lot of really bright people with great ideas and sometimes all they need is a bit of a pathway or a ladder. They’re going to do it but you can sometimes clear the way for them a little bit.

This job was presented to me. It’s not like I had a long lead time into this at all. There was never a doubt. I think probably from the first 30 seconds of that conversation that I decided I was going to be a part of it. When you look at anything that you do, it’s the why. Why this? Because it’s something that really matters and it will really make a difference.

I’ve worked in the public service, in this stint, for about the last nine years and been really privileged to be part of things that make a difference. As with the soil conservation service rehabilitating parts of the environment like creeks, rivers, contaminated sites – they’re things that leave a legacy into the future. You can look at that and say – yes we did something, it made a difference, it feels good. I play a really small part in that.

Similarly, with local land services, working with land holders on a whole range of issues but particularly around improving their sustainability, biosecurity risk management, working with NSW Landcare movement, a lot of work with indigenous communities as well – things that really matter.

I don’t feel intimidated by the job but everybody I speak to – even really senior people who have achieved a whole lot more than me – say, wow this is a really big job and thank you so much for taking it on. It would be really easy to get overwhelmed with it but what we’re doing here really matters and that was brought home to me the first time I visited after the flood. I had come up here a number of times well before I got this job and we had teams both in public works and soil conservation service that were on the ground in that first 24 hours in the cleanup work. I’d been up and appreciated first-hand what was going on.

I get how it was before. My grandparents used to live down at the mouth of the Clarence River for about 30 years. My first memory of Lismore was when I was about 18, coming up here with my Nanna on one of her big shopping escapades. Having never been here before I thought, it’s a regional city, it’s not a small town.

We were here in the thick of summer in January so I was blown away by the humidity. It was bustling, heaps of people, young people and the alternative community as well. I got to come here many times over the years so I had a good sense of the place- and over the last five years with Local Land Services. We’ve got an office here that got destroyed, over near Aldi. When that got flooded I thought, how is that even possible? I’d been there and knew how high it was. We have a team over at Casino as well, and Grafton and Ballina.

I’ve been up here for holidays over the years and also for bike racing. I love this part of the world. I remember coming up here for the first time in the capacity of this role and my youngest daughter Mia, who’s only 8, had something important on and I said I’m really sorry I can’t be there. I always make the kids stuff a priority, always trying to be there at events. She said no Dad, it’s alright, I understand what you’re doing is really important – there are people up there who don’t have houses. That just says to me what matters.

David with youngest daughter Mia

In any person’s career, the opportunity to get in and do something to make a profound difference… it's not just about recovering here and building back. It's about doing it better. Every time it rains here, the community has anxiety – is this going to happen again? I think we will only be successful if we take that anxiety away. The test of what we do here now won’t be in a year, three years or even five when the corporation is folded up and gone. It’s about ten, 20 and 50 years, how resilient is this community?

The expectation is three to five years. Realistically, we’re not going to get it done in less than three years but moving as quickly as we can will be important. There are some decisions we can make early that are no-brainer decisions – everyone is going to be on board with – and when that’s the case, we just need to crack on with that really quickly.

There are other things where we need the evidence, the science – because we’re making critical decisions for the future – and we need to engage with the community and take them on the journey. They’ve got to be a part of those decisions. Right across the Northern Rivers, every community is different as well. We’ve got the seven council areas, they’re all unique with unique challenges.

Certainly, the biggest challenges are right here in Lismore. We’ll only be successful if we take the community on the journey and they understand why we’re making the decisions we are. We can’t just come in and impose things. We got to take the time to listen, learn and understand. That’s what I’m doing at the moment – out there engaging, a lot of listening. Every now and then you find another gem. We’ve got to make sure they don’t slip through the cracks in what we do.

In terms of building back better and stronger, we’ve got the opportunity here to improve so many things into the future. While we want to do it quickly, we don’t want to miss the opportunity to maximise the economic development.

We’re looking at opportunities around social procurement, indigenous engagement, really high local content in all that we do. It would be easy to bring in a tier one contractor and they smash through and get things done, but where’s the legacy in that? Whereas, we have a three-year program of work, that creates opportunities for training, skills development and for ongoing employment beyond this. We’ve just got to be really strategic about the way we do that and make sure we don’t just get so focused on the finish line that we miss some of those really good things that will leave that enduring legacy here. We want a high sustainability approach to all that we do as well, because that is really important to communities up here.

Water has always been something that fascinated me, since I was a kid, playing in the creek that was running through the rainforest at the back of our place. I’d put obstacles in and watch the way water behaves, playing around like a water laboratory. I’ve always had that intense interest. Even this morning travelling across here, I called into Bangalow where we did some work with the soil conservation service about six years ago at the old weir. I ducked in to have a look, I was interested to see how it had held up through all of this. It was perfect. I called Pete our project manager based out of Grafton and said I was so pleased to see how well it had held up.

For me to be involved or leading something that is core to my professional interest is great. A lot of people I’ve worked with in various parts of my career have got in contact with me – some I haven’t heard from for years – and they’ve said, if anyone can do this - you can. That’s reassuring. Even my wife said, everything you’ve done to date has led you here. I don’t feel daunted by it but I feel a deep responsibility to get it right. Not getting it right, not delivering – it’s just not an option.

https://www.regional.nsw.gov.au/our-work/NRRC