Don Owers

Don Owers has just had his 78th birthday, which he says sounds alarming even to him.

Don was a marine engineer for about ten years, polluting the world's oceans with Shell tankers, amongst other things. The he got a job with TAFE in Newcastle, as a teacher of marine engineering, where he stayed for 29 years. He says this was the "greatest job ever".

At the end of this time, governments had decided they did not need TAFE or Australian shipping, shipbuilding or even repair. So in his new life as a retiree, Don went cycling, surfing, planted trees and wrote angry letters to politicians. 

Don is the one in the front in the picture, by the way; the one behind is his grandson Marley and they are on the Sydney Harbor Bridge.