Mid-North Coast: The dream jobs and how you can get a foot in the door
From high-flying pilot careers to deep-diving with grey nurse sharks, we take a look at the top jobs on the Mid-North Coast and how you can get a foot in the door.
Mid-North Coast
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Careers are built on hard work, passion and persistence — and there’s no better feeling than landing your dream job.
The Mid-North Coast is full of adventurous and motivated like-minded individuals who have ditched the nine to five to purse their dreams.
From soaring in sea plans up high, to diving with sharks down below, we take a look at the list of envious roles and how you can get a foot in the door.
Surfing Instructor
Third generation surfer Wayne ‘Huddo’ Hudson’s affinity with the water, combined with his physical skills on a surfboard, enabled him to pursue a career as a surf instructor.
The former professional surfer grew up in Port Macquarie and established himself as a local household name, before forming Port Macquarie Surf School with his father, brother and wife.
The region’s popularity as a well-known surfing spot with plenty of breaks has enabled Wayne to merge his sporting prowess into a life long income stream.
“When I was younger I did pro juniors, but I didn’t have that mental strength,” he said. “Surfing was just in the family blood.”
Wayne’s talent is his big asset, but when it comes to running a business, it also helps to have a grounded education.
“I also have an environmental science degree and a teaching degree and they have really helped,” he said.
“My wife has also got a teacher’s degree. “We’re really lucky in that we’ve got a broad range of skills that we can lean on to earn some extra money.
Port Macquarie Surf School runs lessons for backpackers, tourists and schools, and also private one-on-one training which is perfect during Covid-restrictions.
For anyone with an interest in learning more about surfing, or to book a lesson, head to Port Macquarie Surf School.
Scuba Diver
Not a lot of people get to say they spend more time underwater with sharks than with people on land, but that’s a typical day in the life for Scuba Haven’s Peter Huettner — who’s been doing it for 40 years.
Having started working in diving shops in the 1980s, Peter primarily spends his days taking groups out in Laurieton and Port Macquarie looking for grey nurse sharks and anything else that lurks beneath.
“We’re lucky around here we get a lot of everything,” he said.
“All the fish species that are commonly caught, a lot of sea slugs, coral, soft coral – things that have a lot of life. We’ve actually identified a very unique species of sea spider too.
Peter mixes his business at Scuba Haven Port Macquarie between commercial and recreational, and also teaches first aid.
When he’s not in the office or underwater, he’s doing volunteer work with Marine Rescue NSW.
Peter said a love of the water and marine life were the main catalysts for him pursuing a career as diver.
“I grew up in the water so it was just a natural progression,” he said.
“Before I started the business I had already worked in dive shops around town so I knew exactly what was happening.
“And then it evolved from instructing on a small boat, to a bigger boat and then opening a shop because I needed to store everything.”
“If you’re looking to do diving, before you start you have to be a minimum of a dive master, preferably an instructor, and you also should have a commercial boat license.”
You can learn more about diving at Scuba Haven’s website.
Marina Manager
Not even a stint of retirement could stop Alec Mulvey from leaving his post as the Marina Manager at Port Macquarie marina.
“I left the job to retire and sailed up to Port Douglas and we went inland in the RV, but then Covid hit,” he told the Mid-North Coast News.
“So we came back home and the job was up for grabs again, so I told them I was coming back.”
Mr Mulvey was the Marina Manager for five years where he helped with $5 million worth of renovations.
“That was four new birthing docks, office suites, amenities and a new slipway that can take larger vessels.”
As the Marina Manager, Alec engages contractors to maintain the pristine look and feel of one of Port’s most aesthetic and practical locations.
“I’m pretty hands on so I do a lot of it myself. My daily routine includes a dock walk, going to check on every vessel to check they’re not sinking and they’ve got power going to them.
“Making sure their lines are nice and tight and they're not hitting one another. People like to know their boats are being looked after.
Alec looks after 85 wet births, which are at 95 per cent capacity.
“We also look after town wharf were the commercial vessels are,” he said.
Alec said he’s very lucky to have a job doing what he loves, particularly during the quieter Covid downturn.
“I’m very lucky compared to some other poor buggers,” he said.
Head Lifeguard
As one of only a ‘handful’ of head lifeguards in the country, James Turnham counts himself among the luckiest people in Australia.
The well-known Port Macquarie local and lifeguard grew up a swimmer and competing in surf lifesaving events.
When he completed school, James applied as a beach lifeguard while working out what he wanted to with his career.
“Little did I know I’d still be doing it 20 years later,” he said.
“Among the lifeguard work which was mostly seasonal, I continued my studies as a personal trainer and high school PE teacher, but when a position was offered full-time I couldn’t knock that back.
“It has it’s cruisy days but definitely has very tough days as you could imagine with CPR’s, body retrievals, searches, missing kids, shark attacks et. – but this is all expected in the job.
“It’s a great lifestyle but knowing things can turn at any second, it’s important to always be prepared and ready. That is the biggest part of life guarding.
He said the job requires a range of different skills and experience that people may not realise.
”It’s not just responding to rescues and making sure lifeguards turn up to work, it is an annual cycle of: Recruiting, training and rostering, teaching courses (first aid, CPR, jet skis, drones) fitness testing and annual skills proficiency, Public Surf safety awareness, and school education programs.
Then there’s the maintenance of equipment including boards and jet skis, Surf reports, Media Data entry, and reporting.
“To become a lifeguard the minimum qualifications are First Aid, CPR and Gold Medallion, but often lifeguard services will train people up if they already have a solid surfing, lifesaving or medical background,” he said.
Each lifeguard must also pass an annual fitness test of an 800 metre pool swim in under 14 minutes and an ocean mission involving an endurance swim/run/board/run course.
“It is also a great casual job for those straight out of school or for students to earn some money in uni breaks. Even for school teachers looking for some extra work in the holiday periods.”
For anyone interested in looking into it, depending on your area, all the info you will need is at lifeguards.com.au or via your council.
Pilot
Commercial, charter and scenic airline pilot Christian Corse is the owner operator of Eastern Air Service, a family-owned based out of Port Macquarie.
An engineer by trade, Mr Corse developed a love of aviation after working at Port Macquarie airport for 30-plus years.
His passion for air travel took flight one day when he and another friend where sitting together one day having coffee, where they brainstormed the idea of setting up a multifaceted airline business.
“We said, hey, let’s start an airline,” he said.
We’ve seen a lot of companies come and go here, with routes to Lord Howe Island, and we sort of modelled our business on things that they did right and things that they did wrong. We’ve been going now for about four years very very successfully.”
Mr Corse has a fleet of 16 aircraft which services commercial and privately chartered markets, such as large group bookings for whale watching above sea whale watching expeditions.
He said being a pilot has afforded him to do what he loves, ever day.
“I just grew up with a passion for aviation that grew into a business,” he said.
“With aviation, you get the bug. It’s a great lifestyle.”
Mr Corse also offers pilot training courses for anyone wishing to learn to take the next step into aviation.
For more information about this, visit the Eastern Air Services website
Principal
St Columba Anglican College is a school that gets things done.
Such is the ethos of principal Terry Muldoon who brings significant experience and expertise to the role, but also a different mind set around teacher recruitment.
“The work I get to do, 95, 97 per cent of it is just great,” Mr Muldoon said.
“Every job has some things that you wish you could sleep in today and you don’t want to do this or that, every job has that aspect, but because we are an independent school – we get to do stuff.
“We don’t have to constantly refer back to a head office. Every Wednesday I meet with my executive and we make decisions that can be enacted virtually the next day – and that’s the difference.
“Our vision is that we transform the lives of kids, if you look at all the research of regional and rural schools, it says you don’t get the same opportunities, you don’t have the same resources [as city counterparts], but we love proving that wrong.
“Our kids are aspirational, they tend to act in concert rather than as individuals. That’s really important to me.”
Being a teacher at St Columba doesn’t mean you have to follow a conventional path to get their.
Many of Mr Muldoon’s staff been hired through less conventional routes, because of the multifaceted skills sets that they bring other than just a university degree.
“One of our guys has done amazing things with our legal studies class, and he was a top international lawyer,” he said.
“But he wanted to be a teacher, so he retrained, and came and worked with us and he is blitzing it.
“We’ve got an electrician whose an engineering teacher, there’s a chippy who runs our TAS department and gets kids in the top one, two, three, five in building and construction.
“They do it because they love it.”
St Columba Anglican College ranked number 140 on the list of 585 high schools in the Higher School Certificate last year, narrowly pipping the year 12 team at MacKillop Catholic College, who also gave good account of themselves coming in at 176.
Koala Hospital volunteer
There’s no greater feeling for Amanda Gordon than nurturing an injured koala back into the wild.
For 18 years, Ms Gordon has spent a significant amount of her time taking treating and caring for sick koalas as part of her team leading duties.
Ms Gordon arrived in Port Macquarie from Western Australia, and immediately started donating her time to the sick marsupials. Within five weeks she was heading up her own team.
“Working there has definitely been the anchor for us [her family] remaining here,” she said.
“What’s the fascination with koalas? it's probably my go to thing and remains as true today as it did from the start but I had no wildlife background before that.
“The other parts of my life is singing, acting and dancing, so animal work was something entirely different but it seemed like an amazing thing to be able to work with Australia’s most iconic animal and be very hands on.”
As a team leader, Mrs Gordon said: “You get a front row access to a very amazing creature.”
“Being at the hospital is a reset button. The world can be going absolutely crazy and all you have to do is looking at a koala and they seem to have it all worked out. They go from moment to moment just enjoying themselves.
”It’s a real privilege to just hang out with them.”
Animal experience is not an essential requirement in volunteering at the hospital, but a love and appreciation for koalas certainly is.
For anyone wishing to inquire about a role, visit https://www.koalahospital.org.au/page/volunteer/
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