It's late Friday and guess what?
Filipetto has given all his LMO port managers a spin......
Line Maintenance Terminals Leadership Update
I am now in a position to largely detail the changes to the LMO Terminals Leadership line up going forward. These changes will consolidate the effort required to take our business forward as it faces both the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead.
Manager Line Maintenance Sydney Terminals / Canberra
Mark Austin will continue in this role with the excellent leadership he has been providing over recent months. Mark has previous experience as Line Maintenance Manager WA/SA/NT, Production Manager Sydney Aircraft Maintenance and Operations Manager SIO.
Manager Line Maintenance Melbourne / Hobart
After a long and illustrious career spanning 42 years with TAA, Australian Airlines and Qantas, Tony Lauder has elected to leave the organisation and retire. Tony has demonstrated outstanding leadership and technical competency throughout the time I have known and worked with him. I would like to congratulate him on an exemplary career and thank him for the time spent in Maintenance Watch and his stewardship of the Melbourne Line Maintenance business. Ali Al-Hilli will join my team filling the void left by Tony’s departure. Ali brings 35 years’ experience having led various areas in Line Maintenance, Heavy Maintenance, Maintenance Control, Customer Support and Production Planning. Most recently, Ali has been leading the Avalon Heavy Maintenance facility and the B744 transformation program.
Manager line Maintenance Perth
Paul Trask elected to leave the business some months back to pursue other interests. Paul did an excellent job in Perth and the foundation he laid will be picked up by Mark Wade who will move permanently into the role vacated by Paul. Mark will bring to the Perth Line Maintenance Team his extensive people and operational experience, gained during 15 years with Qantas. Mark has led significant change programs in his roles within Q Catering as Operations Manager in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, and General Manager Perth. At Qantas Airports, Mark has held roles in Perth as Airport Operations Manager, Business Improvement Manager, Customer Service Manager and led a number of change initiatives across the NSW/ACT region as Manager Sydney Airport Transformation.
Manager Line Maintenance Brisbane
Again after a very long and significant career with Line Maintenance spanning almost 39 years, Mark Thompson has elected to leave the LMO business to pursue other interests. Having risen through the ranks, Mark has been very effective in his leadership roles over the years and has worked hard to make improvements in all positions he has occupied. Please join me in wishing Mark the very best in his future pursuits. Rick Warfield will now move to the position of Manager, Line Maintenance Brisbane. Rick joined Qantas in 2002 after many years working in various airlines and roles. Rick started as a LAME in BNE LMO and moved across to Brisbane Base Maintenance as the inaugural Shift/Operations Manager. After six and a half years in Base Maintenance, Rick moved to Adelaide to take on his current role of SA LMO Manager in 2010.
Manager Line Maintenance Adelaide
Given Rick’s move to the Brisbane role, I will look to use the Adelaide position as a development opportunity in the short to mid-term and I am pleased to announce that Ryan Brand – Ops Manager BNE LMO, will take up a six month secondment role as the Manager in Adelaide. Ryan returned to Qantas in 2000 in Sydney Heavy maintenance. The majority of his time since then has been spent working in MEL LMO as a LAME and Duty Maintenance Manager. Around 18 months ago Ryan took on the role as Operations Manager in Brisbane Base Maintenance and was involved in several transformation projects as well as project managing A380 offshore maintenance. In February Ryan moved back to LMO as an Operations Manager in Brisbane.
In regards to Darwin and Cairns, an interim arrangement will see Mark Strange – who currently leads the Darwin line station, assumes operational control of both these ports along with Townsville and, Alice Springs. A permanent resolution to the leadership of this region will be forthcoming soon as some details are finalised.
Please join me in congratulating and thanking those managers that are leaving our business for their outstanding efforts and dedication over many years, and wishing them the very best. In addition, please join me in welcoming the new leadership line up to our business. This LMO Leadership team going forward will continue to focus closely on staff engagement, safety, quality and operational excellence. Most of these changes will formalise and take effect in the late August / September timeframe as handovers are scheduled.
I would also like to personally thank Geoff Moore for the role he has played in managing Cairns over the last four months for me. Geoff will also be leaving the Organisation soon and again, he too has had a long and exemplary career with Qantas over many years. Geoff is seen as an “elder” and mentor by many he works with, and he will be sorely missed. We wish him well in his retirement. My thanks also to Warren Rogers for his assistance in providing short term leadership relief in both Cairns and Perth recently. Warren will be moving to another role after providing Mark a handover in Perth. Also my thanks to Martin Grimshaw who has been managing Cairns for me in the past few weeks.
For my part, I hope to move from my LMOM Program Manager role to my full time job of heading up the LMO Leadership team in the coming weeks where I can give my full attention to continuing on our journey of business improvement and consistent and honest communications with our people. I know that the recent changes in LMO have been really hard on everyone and this has left our people perhaps confused and uncertain, even cynical and raw. Being so close to it myself, I have seen how people have been affected and I do not diminish it for one minute – I have found it very difficult too, but now is the time to move forward. My commitment is to communicate openly, plainly and often - so as to re-engage our LMO Staff in what we still have to do going forward. I have two simple goals – they are to make the LMO Line Station business the best it can be and for our people to be happy by and large, to come to work.
We will however need to constantly challenge the way we do things in our business. We are part of a larger organisation and a global industry and more change is inevitable. I have flagged the review of our procedures that is needed and then what we do on the tarmac. We need to continue doing the right things for our customers, always providing the technical and quality excellence we are renowned for, and working safely – making the best use of our skills. I have signalled that we will need to work collaboratively in tweaking rosters to better match workload demand. These matters will be discussed openly and with balance, and the very people who work the tarmac and the rosters will be asked to contribute, and help shape the best possible outcomes for all concerned. I would like to make better use of technology, smart phones and tablets for example on tarmac to help with our daily work requirements, as well as focus on facility, GSE and tooling needs to have the right gear in the right place at the right time. Building stronger working relationships with Planning and the Part 42 is also prime going forward and leveraging off that collaboration to get things done.
That’s all for now, but in ending I would like to say that whilst things are tough at the moment, I do hold great optimism for the future. There is no magic in any of this – just understanding, hard work and collaboration from us all to keep developing the LMO business in a way that secures our future.
Thank you and with kind regards
Dave
Read into these moves what you will but, it's obvious to me that the campaign of buggery is still far from over.
