2022 Major Industry Forum

Brian Hooper
Project Manager, KBSC Redevelopment

Brian Hooper is a graduate from the QUT School of Architecture, sole practitioner and director of Brian Hooper Architect. Based in Yeppoon & established in 1998, the design orientated practice has worked on numerous Local Queensland Government projects, tourist, public, commercial, & high end residential sectors locally and throughout Western Queensland.

Brian was recent recipient of the F.D.G. Stanley Award for Public Architecture for the Muttaburrasaurus Interpretation Centre, in Muttaburra western Queensland. He has also collaborated with several larger practices with commissioned work as varying as; the Tree of Knowledge Memorial, Globe Visitor Information Centre & Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame (m3architecture), Rockhampton Museum of Art (Clare Design / Conrad Gargett), & Yeppoon Foreshore Revitalisation (TCL / Architectus). Brian is also currently Project Manager for the Keppel Bay Sailing Club redevelopment.

Dr Emma McCahon
Health Service Chief Executive

Emma started her career in health as a paediatrician, has 15 years’ experience in senior leadership and management roles in New South Wales Health and has held senior executive roles in large health services since 2011. Emma has strong clinical background and experience in leading turnaround for organisations to achieve financial, clinical, and cultural targets and outcomes.

Before joining CQ Health in April 2022, Emma was Executive Director Medical Services at Western Sydney Local Health District where there are 11,000 staff and 190,000 ED presentations a year. At Western Sydney, Emma was professional lead for senior and junior medical staff, responsible for research ($70m clinical trial revenue) and Clinical Education as well as the Pandemic Operations Centre Controller. During her time at Western Sydney Emma also acted in the role of Executive Director Operations (Chief Operating Officer) and Chief Executive for the service, particularly notably during heightened periods of COVID-19 outbreaks in New South Wales.

Emma was Director of Clinical Operations of the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network for four years from 2015, where she had had oversight of the clinical operations of Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney Children’s Hospital, and several State-wide services such as: New Born and Paediatric Emergency Transport Services; Perinatal Services Network; Children’s Court Clinic; Poisons Information Service and Bear Cottage (Hospice) and responsibility for managing a budget of $740m and a 5000 staff, including nursing, allied health, junior and senior medical staff and clinical support staff.

Trent Miles
Managing Director, All Industries Group

As the co-founder of All Industries Group a services and manufacturing business based on the Capricorn Coast Trent is passionate about growing the strength and competitiveness of regional businesses. Trent has lived and breathed manufacturing, sales & management his entire life, with a strong focus of developing and growing businesses internally and externally.

With 16 years of experience in the manufacturing industry, Trent has developed his skills in operations management, contract negotiations, Lean manufacturing and is focused on business continuous systematic improvement. Trent is known for his meticulous approach to managing business sustainability and applying the Total Quality Management (TQM) framework to his business. He is very passionate and dedicated to achieving results and takes initiative to build internal trust within a company to harbour success in all areas.

Tony Gambling
Director of Regional Development, Regional Development Australia Central and Western Queensland

Born and raised in Queensland, Tony is a happily married father of 4. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, CPA Australia, the Institute of Managers and Leaders (formerly AIM) and the Governance Institute of Australia and a member of Mensa Australia.  He has worked for multi-nationals such as NAB and IBM, both in various cities in Australia and the Middle-East, as well as in his own small businesses including several franchised Subway Sandwich shops.

Tony has taught undergraduate and post-graduate Economics at the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology and facilitated courses for the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is an experienced non-Executive Director and has spent 16 years on the boards of an Insurance company, a Bank and a Motoring Association. His true passion is Rugby Union, and while a terrible player as a younger person, he is an avid follower, coach and team manager of various Rugby teams in Central Queensland.

Dave Grenfell OAM
Chairman, Apprentices and Trainees Queensland

Dave has 40 years’ experience in the building and construction industry with 25 years working as a Senior Manager for Tier One companies delivering multiple major projects.

He maintains a passion for training, coaching, mentoring and building great leaders. Giving back to our community, working to provide solutions that improve our community, while providing sustainability economic development through collaborative leadership for our region.

In 2018 Dave was awarded an OAM for services to the Construction and Building Industries.

Nathan St John
Manager of Data Insights, Construction Skills Queensland

Nathan St John is the Manager of Data Insights with Construction Skills Queensland (CSQ). Responsible for design and delivery of CSQ’s data and research capability, providing a trusted source of skills information to all stakeholders in the Queensland construction industry.

Nathan has deep experience in translating complex datasets into actionable insights for industry, governments, and policymakers. His passion is harnessing data for sense-making in a rapidly changing world.

Nathan was the project lead for CSQ’s recent renewables report – Queensland’s first full investigation into what both net zero and hydrogen could mean for the state and its workforce. Prior to joining CSQ, Nathan was a lead data analyst with the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Associate Professor Sonia Saluja
Head of Course Pathway to Medicine, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity

Sonia is a medically trained academic with over 20 years of teaching experience in tertiary institutions and medical schools in Australia and overseas. In her role as Head of Course she provides academic leadership to the Bachelor of Medical Science (Pathway to Medicine).

She has a keen interest in medical education and has extensive experience in curriculum design and leading medical programs throughout her professional career. Creating learning environments contextualised to careers in medical science has been at the heart of her work. A strong believer in taking a student-focused approach, she develops teaching tools and assessment strategies aimed at encouraging students to discover the exciting world of medical science.

Sonia is a Senior Fellow Advance HE (UK) and has received national recognition for her work in learning and teaching. In 2021, she was a recipient of an Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT), awarded with a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.

Associate Professor Sunday Pam

Associate Professor & Head, Rockhampton Regional Clinical Unit, Rural Clinical School, The University of Queensland

A/Professor Pam was trained in Nigeria and the UK. He is a qualified General Paediatrician with long term interest in Medical Education and research into common medical issues of the local population. He has many years of training medical students and paediatricians with 15 of those in Australia, where the passion has continued. A/Professor Pam contributed to the new UQ MD Design curriculum and redevelopment of the paediatric course tutorials for UQ.
He has numerous publications spanning treatment of malaria, rickets and calcium absorption, treatment & prevention of HIV and more recently, common clinical conditions in Australia. His research projects with students are a means of developing the passion in them.
In the Rockhampton Hospital, he is a Senior Staff Paediatrician and has been Acting Director of Paediatrics for 22 months. During this time, he has midwifed a new training programme for advanced paediatric trainees and significantly re-structured and improved the whole paediatric training programme. In addition, he also serves as Director of Clinical Training for the hospital with responsibility for training junior doctors.
As a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, he serves as educational supervisor, examiner, facilitator of the popular Supervisor Professional Development Programme and previously served on college committees.

Dr Vicki Richmond
Board Chairperson and Co-founder, Fitzroy Community Hospice, Central Queensland

Vicki Richmond is an experienced Specialist General Practitioner and Board Chairperson of Fitzroy Community Hospice – a grass roots, community driven project initiated in late 2020 in response to shared concern regarding the palliative care available in Central Queensland. Vicki brings her clinical skill, lived experience and postgraduate Health Management expertise to the Hospice project and leads a team of skilled and dedicated volunteers embarking on an $10.5 million capital infrastructure project as part of the establishment of Central Queensland’s first Hospice service. 

Rick Hospers
Regional Business Lead, Central Queensland, NBNCo

Rick has worked in the Telecommunications industry for the past 38 years as a technician, Sales executive, Sales Manager and for the past 12 months as Regional Business Lead for NBN Local.

During this time he has lived and worked solely in the Central Queensland Region and as such has a good understanding of the difficulties, challenges and opportunities that Businesses are faced with operating within regional and rural areas.

The primary aim for all the roles he has held is to deliver telecommunications and IT solutions to Large Enterprise, Local Government and small-medium customers to improve business processes and productivity through the adoption of technology.

This extensive experience has helped him to be a trusted advisor to Businesses throughout the Central Queensland region.

Greg Piper
Principal Engineer – Renewable & Hybrid Systems, Yurika

Greg is an Electrical Engineer with experience in substation and distribution network design and construction, power system modelling and analysis, SCADA development, lightning protection and earthing system design and analysis, industrial and mine processing plants, and thermal, hybrid, and renewable power generation.

Greg has demonstrated experience in engineering design across a wide variety of electrical assets. Greg has lead construction and commissioning teams, managed operations and maintenance of thermal, hybrid, and renewable power systems, and was responsible for leading the optimisation of the DeGrussa Solar Project hybrid generation plant.

Greg has been an expert witness for the Supreme Court of Tasmania and was a presenter at the 2016 Engineers Australia Down To Earth Conference.

Jamie Wilson
Executive Chairman and Founder, Cryptoloc Technology

Jamie took a fierce interest in cybersecurity solutions after two devastating life events. In 2010, Jamie’s Dad passed away leaving the family the struggle of locating the crucial documents such as a will, superannuation and life insurance policies. A year later, Jamie witnessed a once in a 100-year flood in his home city of Brisbane with many businesses and residents losing vital and sensitive information.

Coming from a commerce background, Jamie realised the importance of securing data and travelled the world to cross examine leading cyber experts. Returning to Brisbane, Jamie assembled a world class development team of local talent and Cryptoloc is fast becoming one of the world’s leading data security technologies.