Chairs

Major Kyle Tyrrell is currently serving as the Staff Officer to the Assistant Deputy Chief of Army. Kyle has served in the Australian Army for the past twenty years primarily in infantry units, his most recent command being a company in Australia’s parachute battalion.

Throughout 2006 Kyle commanded a combat team deployed to Baghdad, Iraq. He and his team conducted over 100 missions in the Red Zone in Iraq and had the primary mission of protecting Australia’s diplomats and other VIPs. During a five year intermission from military service Kyle worked as a project manager within the public safety arena and also as a management consultant. He is regularly called upon to speak about command and leadership. Kyle is a graduate of the Royal Military College and holds a Masters of Business Administration. He will attend Command and Staff College in 2008

Murray Harding is a Senior Project Manager at the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) in Victoria where they are responsible for emergency call taking and dispatching on behalf of Emergency Service Organisations.

Murray has 30 years experience in Communications & IT and has worked in the Telecommunications, Defence, Law Enforcement, Transport and Emergency Services industries. He was most recently the project manager for construction of ESTA’s new communications centre at Ballarat.

Craig has 25 years experience as an employee of CFA, and has served a volunteer firefighter prior to that. Craig has worked in most parts of Victoria which has resulted in his involvement in Operations, Community Safety, Regional Management and Planning roles. Craig was also seconded to SES Victoria in 2005 to transform VicSES from a Government Department to a Statutory Authority he fulfilled the positions of Director and then the first Chief Executive Officer of the newly formed Authority. Craig currently fills the position of Deputy Chief Officer / Manager Operational Policy and Planning.

Acting Superintendent Martin has 25 years of extensive front line policing experience in a range of operational and support roles including Police operations, communications and emergency management.

urrently Lance Martin holds the position of Program Director for the Communications Infrastructure Program, incorporating the Police Metropolitan Radio Network project. As the Program Director, he manages and coordinates the activities of sworn, police staff and contract personnel in working with government departments and private commercial interests. Responsibilities include managing the implementation of a digital radio network and a vehicle tracking and mobile data service. He is accountable for ensuring that the Police business, financial and commercial interests are effectively managed

Paul May is a Business Development Manager for M/A-COM, Inc., based out for Lynchburg, VA. Mr. May has over 18 years experience in the marketing, product management and engineering of products for the Land Mobile Radio industry. For the past several years, Mr. May has been concentrating on leading the marketing efforts and launching M/A-COM's Project 25 systems business. Prior to that, Mr. May has held Technical Marketing, Product Management and Engineering positions for the M/A-COM/Ericsson/GE LMR businesses. Mr. May is a graduate of Clarkson University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering

Rob Colless has been involved in the spatial industry for approximately 30 years. His current appointment is Manager GIS and Operations – Emergency Information Co-ordination Unit (EICU) Lands Department, which he has assisted in establishing. This new unit is focused on developing a Spatial Data Warehouse for Emergency Service Organisations. Rob has previously worked for Metropolitan Water Sewerage & Drainage Board and the NSW Maritime Authority, and has received an international award for his work integrating GPS, GIS & Incident Recording Technologies creating an operational event management system

Professor Clive Williams MG is a specialist on counterterrorism and politically motivated violence, with a career background in Defence intelligence. He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators (IABTI), and Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers (AIPIO).

Paul Holman, has a broad and diverse operational background and management experience within the Ambulance industry over 30 years. Operational experience as Paramedic in Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance, Air Ambulance, Helicopter, Communications and Field Management. Held numerous operational management positions since 1990. These include area management and secondments to Government departments. Since 2004 appointed as Operations Manager Emergency Management (MAS) and is responsible for all of MAS Emergency Management and Planning encompassing CBR response, major incident management, the MAS emergency response plan and the development and running of the MAS Emergency Operations Centre. Paul is responsible for all CBR, USAR and Emergency Management Training. A member of the Australian College of Ambulance Professionals - Victoria and holds a Graduate Diploma in Administration (Health).

Anne has worked in the area of risk management for over a decade, initially as a consultant risk engineer in the process industries and, for the last three years as the Coordinator, Corporate Risk Management for the NSW Fire Brigades. In this role, she is responsible for developing and implementing the organisation’s risk management framework and for facilitating the dissemination of risk management knowledge and skills across the organisation. This includes coordinating and monitoring the NSWFB’s business continuity planning.

Anne has a BE (Chem) and a PhD in combustion research both obtained from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney. In addition to risk management, Anne has undertaken research into the development novel fuel technologies and into human behaviour in fire.

Chief Superintendent Stephen MacDonald heads the London Metropolitan Police Central Communications Command, the largest Operational Command Unit (OCU) in the United Kingdom with over 2000 staff. Before taking up his current role he was a Borough Commander for one of London’s 32 Boroughs.

His command has responsibility for the Met’s emergency and non emergency telephone handling, the despatching of all response and specialist units across London, the Central Casualty Bureau, and the Special Operations Room which manages pre-planned and spontaneous events - including the ‘7th July’ 2005 response.

In his 28 year police career in London he has worked mainly in operational uniform roles, including Specialist Firearms and Event Planning and Management, and is advanced Public Order ‘cadre’ trained. He is nearing the end of a 7 year project modernising the Mets Command and Control systems, moving 45 local control rooms and 1,500 staff into three new Centres, creating his new command.

Ian Vaskess is currently the Manager of Emergency Services Telecommunications Resources with the Bureau of Emergency Services Telecommunications (BEST), a business unit of the Department of Justice in Victoria. Ian has been with BEST for 5 years and has held senior management roles in the procurement and implementation of the Metropolitan Mobile Radio (MMR) and Mobile Data Network (MDN) projects. Ian has worked in telecommunications for more than 22 years and has a wide range of industry experience including sales support, radio network engineering, project management and international consulting.

Marcus Reston is the Manager for Spatial and Visualisation Technologies at the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing (VPAC). Marcus provides expertise Geospatial technologies, Real-Time solutions implementation & support, Enterprise and scientific data analysis and visualization and Immersive Visualisation. Before joining VPAC, Marcus worked as a Senior Technical Consultant for the visualisation & HPC vendor SGI (Silicon Graphics). Principal activities included the implementation & support of high performance visualisation solutions for SGI customers including RMIT University, DSTO, Woodside Petroleum, & Malaysia’s MDC Flagship Centre. Prior to working with SGI, Marcus provided consultancy services for over 10 years to various government and commercial clients specialising in geophysical data processing, remote sensing, and GIS applications.

Marcus started his professional career with as a contract and exploration geologist in Western Australia, which included a 4 year period with Western Mining Corporation. He has experience in various Australian geologic terranes, & has overseas experience in Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Philippines, Europe, Las Canarias, & the USA. Marcus has a BSc Hons degree in Earth Sciences from the City of London Polytechnic, a Master of Sciences from University of Greenwich, and a PhD in Spectral Geology pending completion at UNSW.