Celebrating 28 years of dedicated service to Tasmania’s VET sector

TasTAFE’s Education Manager Plumbing Trades and Built Environment, Mark Geeves is retiring after 28 years in Tasmania’s VET sector.

TasTAFE’s Education Manager Plumbing Trades and Built Environment, Mark Geeves is retiring after 28-years of dedicated service to Tasmania’s vocational and education sector.

Mark’s journey from horticulture graduate through to management encompasses many of the different areas of expertise taught at TasTAFE – and his career also includes experience working in Tasmania’s Polytechnic.

“Ever since I started in TAFE, I’ve believed we change people’s lives – we have the ability to change a learner’s whole outlook on life,” Mark explained.

“Working out of Bridgewater (Trades Training Centre) we were getting people who were generationally unemployed. The young person, their parents and grandparents hadn’t worked for three generations.

“After completing their training and the young person got a job, it transformed not only the life of the learner – but it changed the whole family dynamic. That’s the sort of work I’ll always be so proud of.”

Mark’s connection to Tasmania (his ancestors settled in the area now known as Geeveston in the 1850’s), lured him back to the State after quitting his hospitality job in Sydney in 1995.

“I came back to Tasmania and said “Oh, my God, what am I going to do? I’ve just thrown in my job.” My mum showed me an advertisement in the Mercury newspaper about studying horticulture at TAFE and I thought “Why not?”. I went along to the enrolment day and got into the course.”

After training for two years and receiving his Diploma, then head of Horticulture Laurie Miller, asked Mark to stay and offered him a job as a teacher assistant – which lasted about six weeks.

“One of the teachers called in sick and Laurie asked me to take the class. He just gave me a book with all the class materials in it and said, “You’ll be fine”. I was nervous, but I did it – and after that, I was teaching full time. Laurie laughed and said, “one day, you’ll have my job” – and eventually I did!”

Mark was appointed team leader of Horticulture in the south of the state; a role he held for several years at a time there were 90 team leaders across the organisation.

“I did that for several years and then the Polytechnic came along. I applied for one of the jobs advertised and was successful. I was appointed as a business centre manager in the Polytechnic, and given management of science, English, Maths and all trades at Hobart, Rosny, and then Don College– it was interesting times.”

In Mark’s words, the Polytechnic reform ‘would have transformed education within Tasmania,’ but it wasn’t to be.

“It was a great pity [the Polytechnic] ended the way it did,” Mark said. “The outcomes for students were amazing.”

Mark persevered through the collapse of the Polytechnic model and secured a new role as manager of Drysdale (now School of the Visitor Economy).

“We did some great things with World Skills and Salon Culinaire, and we had high calibre, world famous chefs coming to share their knowledge with our students – we did some amazing stuff,” said Mark.

A stint in the office of the CEO as manager of marketing and communications presented new challenges under the leadership at the time. Mark demonstrated a great deal of resilience during this tenure, but no matter what the challenge - he always put other people’s needs first.

“It’s all about people – the people that work around me, above or under me. You need to engage with people who can help you do things and make things happen. And I trust my people. They’re passionate about what they do.”

This quality helped Mark bring together a team of people who shared a vision of building a world-class training centre for the plumbing trade, in his new role as education manager.

“In my first week of plumbing, industry said to me that TasTAFE needed new training facilities and asked what I was going to do about it about,” Mark recalls.

“We started working on ideas straight away and received commitments from Keystone and the Master Plumbers Association of Tasmania. Jenny Dodd came in as our new CEO just as all that happened and was supportive of the idea.

“The plumbing industry started lobbying different tiers of government for funding and Matt Dance arranged significant in-kind support. The decision was made to incorporate electrotechnology into the new training facility and we started the design process.”

TasTAFE’s Water and Trades Centre of Excellence opened two years ago at Clarence Campus, and Mark couldn’t be prouder of the outcome.

“I think all my staff would agree, it’s a great place to train people. The students are blown away by it; industry is blown away by it, and it’s considered by our peers as the best training facility of its type in the Nation. I am very proud of the building; it is a fabulous building.”

When asked about those who have had a positive impact on his career, Mark said there have been many people – but a few stood out.

“Jules Carroll in the Polytechnic, Gail Eaton Briggs (former TasTAFE deputy CEO) and Brendan Holland have all had faith in me. They started me on my management journey.

“I want to thank my team because I have a fabulous team, and I’m very, very pleased that Bevan Britton is taking over the EM role. I want to thank him for all his hard work.”

And in retirement Mark has no intention of slowing down.

“I’m the Chair of the Australian Plant Society (Tas), Chair of the Way to St James Pilgrimage Committee, a member of the Tasmania Historical Research Association and a fellow with the Royal Society of Tasmania, and I’ve been asked to sit on the board of the Allport Collection.

“I want to travel to Patagonia; I’m also an avid collector of Middle Ages Arthurian and Colonial Tasmanian literature - and I’ll keep my eye on what’s happening at TasTAFE, too.”

“It’s a great organisation and I’m very proud to say I’ve worked for TasTAFE. I’ll always be very proud of it.”