Sue Chase counts helping power up remote communities among her most rewarding achievements following Australia Day Honours

Helping bring power to remote communities and huge infrastructure projects has been among the most rewarding aspects of Sue Chase’s career — which is why the volunteer pilot has become a new member of the Order of Australia.

• Gallery: All 23 South Australian AOs and AMs
• The full SA honour roll for Australia Day
• Sue Chase named among South Australia’s most influential women
• South Australia’s Australia Day 2018 honours recipients
• Australia Day Honours need more woman, Meg Lees says

Helping bring power to remote communities and huge infrastructure projects has been among the most rewarding aspects of Sue Chase’s career.

Mrs Chase, who was managing director of Cowell Electric until she sold the business last year, is also a volunteer pilot with Angel Flight Australia – a charity that transports rural and remote patients.

“One of the key areas at Cowell Electric is building power lines, and when you’re driving around the state it gives you a lot of pride to see a project we completed and the impact it’s made to people’s lives,” Mrs Chase says.

The company also in 2016 won a contract to operate power stations in remote communities including Oodnadatta, Marree, Blinman and Pukatja (formerly Ernabella) in the APY Lands.

“The feedback we were getting from communities and government was that we had greatly improved the reliability of power supply and our response times to any failures were far better than what they’d been getting in the past.”

Sue Chase has been named a Member in the Order of Australia. Picture: Supplied.

Mrs Chase says she was “honoured and humbled” to learn she would on Saturday be named a Member in the General Division in the Australia Day Honours.

Having also worked on numerous boards, she originally wanted to join the Air Force, but it was not taking female pilots when she got her licence after Year 12.

Through Angel Flight, she has transported patients who live around the Eyre Peninsula.

“One of the flights I did was bringing a sick child and her mother back from Adelaide,” the Cowell woman said.

“She had been having cancer treatment for about six months and was homesick.”

In 2009, Mrs Chase was named the state’s Business Woman of the Year in the Telstra Business Women’s Awards.

She is now semi-retired and president of the Lucky Bay Shack Owners Association.

[e-mail]