Trailblazer takes the chair
20 years of service
AUSTENG director Lyn George has become the first woman to chair the Geelong Manufacturing Council in its 20-year history.
Taking over the role from Air Radiators boss Jamie Baensch last week, Ms George said she hoped her election to the post helped set an example to women considering a career in manufacturing and further encouraged employers to consider the benefits of diversity in the workplace.
“I remember when I started attending Geelong Manufacturing Council meetings five or six years ago, there were very few women,” Ms George said.
On becoming a board member, one of her first initiatives was to lead the development of the Women in Manufacturing Network.
“I think it’s really important to encourage women, particularly young women, to consider manufacturing as a career,” Ms George said.
“It can offer stimulating and well-paid careers and huge opportunities.”
She said traditionally maledominated manufacturing industries were finding they could benefit from further diversity in the workplace.
With a background in law, Ms George and her husband Ross have reinvented their North Geelong engineering firm Austeng in recent years by partnering with a raft of innovative start-ups and universities and by developing world-leading technologies.
She said the challenge for Geelong manufacturers facing competition in a global marketplace was to develop smarter technologies and higher value-add products.
The manufacturing council’ held its AGM on Wednesday with Viva Energy refining general manager Thys Heyns elected to replace retiring board member David Sinclair.
It reported a $25,700 deficit for the financial year, which was better than budgeted and came amid plans to return to a surplus next year. THE way David Sinclair tells it, he just happened to be in the vicinity when he was given the nod as the second chairman of the Geelong Manufacturing Council in 1999, succeeding inaugural leader Brian Backwell.
One suspects if not for humility, there would be more to the story for a man who last week stepped off the board after 20 years’ service.
To note his contribution to the industry, Mr Sinclair was awarded the Brian Backwell Award for Industry Leadership at the council’s AGM.
The award was presented by the son of the late Brian Backwell, and current Backwell Group chairman, Rob Backwell.
Mr Backwell said his father had believed passionately in manufacturing in Geelong and would be delighted to see the way the GMC had grown in the 10 years since he died