Roger Thiessen - Man Behind the Badge
Roger Thiessen was this week’s speaker on the man behind the badge. He described how he grew up on a family farm in the Huon Valley in Tasmania. To complete his secondary education he was sent to a boarding school in Hobart where he first encountered the idea that he might have a different career to farming. He was awarded a scholarship to study Agriculture Science at the University of Melbourne where he was also a resident of International House. After graduation he returned to Tasmania where he had a job in Animal Research with the Department of Agriculture. At that time he also played senior football in the TFL and played in two grand finals to win a premiership.
In furthering his career he gained admission to the University of California at Davis located between San Francisco and Sacramento. This was at a time of great social change when student were rejecting their parents lifestyle and materialism. There were many protest rallies against the Vietnam War and Ronald Regan was the governor of California and President of the University. Robert Kennedy was campaigning for the Presidency and attended a rally at Davis the day before he was assassinated. Although the students worked hard there was also a good social life and time for travel and skiing in the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains
After completing his Master’s and PhD degrees Roger moved to Edinburgh in Scotland to work as a Research Scientist in an Animal Genetics institute within the Agricultural and Food Research Council. The institute later became highly publicised when it produced Dolly, the world’s first cloned Sheep. Edinburgh was a very attractive city to live in and it was here that Roger met his wife to be in Elaine. Apart from attending many conferences in the major cities of Europe there were also many vacations, skiing in the European Alps in the winter and the warmer countries of Spain, Greece and Portugal in the summer.
Roger and Elaine returned to Australia in 1987 where Roger became the Manager of Wool Production Research within the Australian Wool Corporation. This involved the contracting and oversight of R&D programs to the major R&D providers around Australia. The AWC was held in high regard until the collapse of the wool reserve price scheme in the mid 1990’s when many of its functions and staff had to be released due to the high debt that had been incurred.
Roger retired in 1998 and subsequently enjoyed taking up golf at Rosanna and sailing with the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron. He has been a member of The Rotary club of Carlton for 27 years.