Ross Thomas
After I left NSBHS I worked in the Reserve Bank, studying Economics at Sydney Uni on a part-time basis. As that arrangement involved more work and less play than I thought was a good thing, I left the Bank after two years to complete the degree full-time. To my great dismay I was then called up to do National Service, after which I took up a job I'd been offered in the Public Service in Canberra.
Although I didn't intend to make the public service my career, that's what happened. In the early years I worked in what was the Joint Intelligence Organisation and later in the Strategic and International Policy Division of the Department of Defence. In the late 1980s I had a year at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London and on return became the head of Defence's Capital Equipment Program Division. Later jobs included Deputy Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation, Deputy Director-General of the Office of National Assessments, and Director of Studies at the Australian Defence College.
Along the way I married a very forbearing woman with whom I share three children. The kids are all now in their 20s and only one still needs our financial support.
I left Defence in early 2000 and have since been in semi-retirement in Brisbane. I expect to be heading back to Canberra next year, where I will do something productive again. Maybe.