Chris’s family settled in Beaumaris in 1952. He was 9, and life was idyllic, roaming with a red setter through the sea of tea-tree scrub between Haydens and Reserve roads which was the Dunlop Estate. He cycled through this scrub to Beaumaris State school. Later education was at Haileybury College and then Melbourne University to study Engineering.

He was an engineer from birth. He was given his uncle’s Meccano set at age 5 and expanded that through to his teens, until sailing an off-beach dingy at Beaumaris Yacht Club took over.

In 1965 he joined GMH, and in 1966 was selected to go to GMI (General Motors Institute) in Michigan USA (along with 4 others from Holden) where there were about 120 other international students from GM plants around the world. They were enrolled in a 2-year sandwich course (6 weeks studying automotive engineering followed by 6 weeks work experience in GM plants). Here he was introduced to computer modelling of vehicle dynamics.

The overseas GMI students did a lot of partying, where he met Norma, now his permanent souvenir of the USA. Interstate trips gave an appreciation of the varied geography of North America.

 Many management courses were provided by GMH, the most enjoyable being the Industrial Mobilization Course, where a group representing Industry, Finance and the Armed Services were sent around the country (often flying in RAAF transport planes) inspecting manufacturing and armed services facilities to plan mobilization in a time of war. A couple of days were spent at RAAF Laverton, where members of the course were taken on flights in the small trainer planes based on the Victa Air Tourer. Chris was startled when he was offered the controls, dumbfounded when told to roll and then loop the loop, and terrified when told to land the plane! It was all much easier than expected.

Travel has been a large part of his family’s life. Chris often went on outback development trips with Holden, and on his return the family always wanted to see where he had been. In 1975, when Stephen was 4 and Kathryn 3, a camper trailer was bought, and by the time it was worn out in 1995 (the floor reduced from 7 ply to 3 ply by outback gravel roads) it had covered 89,000 km and been slept in 252 nights. The family also took trips to the US (visiting Norma’s family the excuse), and a camper trip through Great Britain and Europe, seeing where business trips had taken Chris, and catching up with old friends from GMI.

Beaumaris Yacht Club was still the local youth club when the children were growing up. When they gave up sailing, Chris stayed on the committee, organizing races, setting courses and driving the patrol boat. He was later invited to be a navigator on Log Trials as part of the Beaumaris Motor Yacht Squadron team, where he was in the top 3 navigators 3 times. 

Post retirement (2019) the Bayside Bushwalking Club was a major interest. Besides participating in hundreds of walks, Chris led 91 over 15 years, trained leaders, served on the committee and was made a life member. Other activities were weed control and track maintenance with Parks Victoria rangers, who asked him to build a boardwalk over a swampy area in Bunyip State Forest. He modified the design proposed by Parks to increase its expected life and reduce its cost and built it with a team from the BBC, winning the Premier’s Volunteer Champions award in 2018.

 The Bushwalking Club also organized walks overseas, taking Chris and Norma to England (coast to coast), South Africa and Patagonia, and via Aurora Travel founder Greg Mortimer (first Australian to summit Everest without oxygen), to Antarctica, Alaska (via the Inside Passage), the Arctic, and the Kimberley coast. The club also introduced them to “Exploranges”, with whom they took 10 trips around the outback of Australia, visiting places they could never have accessed with the camper trailer.