Kevin Brown on aviation, ambulances and the career he almost had

Even as a child, Kevin Brown recalls being mesmerised by the rush of traversing a busy airport and watching the enormous aircraft roaring up and down the tarmac.

As his father’s work as a mechanical engineer took him away from their home in Scotland, Brown’s trips between the departures lounge and arrivals marked the beginning of an affinity for aviation that would guide the trajectory of his own career.

St John WA chief executive Kevin Brown in Lathlain.Credit: Ross Swanborough.

“Going through the airport was almost as exciting to me as the holiday itself, it just always intrigued me,” he tells me, as we settle in for our lunch at Laika Coffee in Lathlain.

“I’m really fascinated with environments where there are a lot of things happening at once — I really liked dynamic environments.”

More than four decades on, Brown still can’t definitively say whether it was subliminal messaging or an inquisitive mind that led him to follow in his father’s footsteps.

But having spent his youth playing with educational electronics kits, he decided electrical engineering would be a better fit.

“As a kid, I always loved Lego and Meccano — building things and making things better,” he says.

“I used to play with those kits as a kid and join all the different capacitors and resistors and transistors and build radios and things… it was all down hill from there.”

After graduating with Honours at Robert Gordon University in northeast Scotland, he took on a role with Scottish Power before venturing 5300 kilometres west to Bermuda, where he would reside for the next three years.

Brown returned to the United Kingdom in 2002 to join what was then known as the British Airports Authority, rising through the ranks at Heathrow and Aberdeen airports before being promoted to the top job at Edinburgh in 2010.

The sunshine-loving Scotsman concedes he was missing the subtropical climate he had become accustomed to in Bermuda when North Queensland Airports began hunting for a new chief executive.

And a move to Australia had long been on the bucket list.

“I used to get all these postcards while my sister was backpacking in Australia and I thought ‘that looks like an interesting place to go’,” he says.

“Then I visited a few times and thought ‘this is a pretty special place’.”

He would lead operations for both Cairns and Mackay Airports for just shy of five years before relocating west to take up the same role in Perth.

It’s only fitting that it’s now his carefully decorated coffee arrives, something he admits he only began indulging in after he landed the top job.

Laika Coffee, Lathlain.Credit: Ross Swanborough.

“I think that’s the fanciest latte I’ve ever seen... I don’t want to destroy it. Is this your work?” he asks the waiter.

“I only started [drinking coffee] while working at Perth Airport during the pandemic because the café downstairs stayed open. Everything in moderation.”

By his own admission, Brown thrives in challenging environments — and there were no shortage of obstacles during his time at the helm of Western Australia’s major transport hub.

He oversaw Perth Airport’s multibillion-dollar expansion and guided the organisation through the pandemic, which brought most international travel to a grinding halt, forced the closure of its terminals and plunged it into the red for the first time in its history.

He also stared down the national carrier Qantas and threatened it with eviction over its failure to cough up $20 million in outstanding fees, a battle he says he waged on behalf of mum and dad shareholders.

But Brown is reluctant to take any credit for how the organisation managed, and recovered, under his stewardship, insisting it was the people — not the bricks, mortar and tarmac — that sustained the service.

“I didn’t take my role there lightly. We were the gateway for not just tourism but commerce, for international students, for allowing the mining sector to operate and the dollars to flow in — both to the state and federally — to pay for all the extra health services,” he says.

“My team were there keeping the airport open, allowing the mining industry to operate, allowing people to go home. It was a significant part of the ecosystem of the economy.”

Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti and Kevin Brown during his time as Perth Airport chief executive.Credit: Elliahn Blenkinsop

Over avocado on toast, his lunch of choice, Brown admits he could see the role spearheading St John Ambulance coming.

The state’s primary ambulance service provider had been subjected to intense scrutiny over response time blow outs and ambulance ramping which culminated in a parliamentary inquiry calling on the government to bring the service in-house if things didn’t improve within five years.

And yet despite the criticism levelled at his predecessor Michelle Fyfe before her resignation, Brown said he was still interested in the role he would go on to land in October 2022.

The makeup of the 130-year-old organisation was equally appealing, Brown says, with more than 5740 volunteers and 3200 team members spread over more than a dozen distinct parts of the business — from first aid training to event health services.

Brown hit the ground running, carrying out his foreshadowed shakeup of the company’s leadership team.

Despite being vastly different from the roles he held previously, he says he has identified a common theme between the utility sector, aviation and St John Ambulance — they’re all critical services.

And he revealed it was in closer alignment with the career he almost had.

“Early in my career, I was a volunteer — a special constable — a part-time police officer, and I did that for nearly 10 years,” he says.

“It was a career path I was seriously considering at the time. It wasn’t that my job with Perth Airport wasn’t purposeful, but I was probably looking for something where I could really give back and serve the community.

“I don’t think there are many organisations I have come across that have that history and have been doing so much for the broader community for such a long time.”

Reporter Jesinta Burton with St John WA chief executive Kevin Brown.Credit: Ross Swanborough.

And that’s a commitment he takes beyond his working week, having clocked 160 hours volunteering as an ambulance officer this year alone.

But he’s quick to clarify he’s not an undercover boss and is simply another member of the organisation’s dedicated team.

“Some people don’t realise. They’ll make polite conversation and say ‘so what do you do?’… I just say I’m a manager. Usually by the fourth question, I’ll let it out of the bag,” he tells me.

“I’m fortunate to have a great team of people, and all the backup people that support the frontline to do what they do.

“It’s a pretty humbling privilege to be able to give something back and be a small part of that, but they have a tough job.”

And the job was particularly difficult for the team in 2023, following the tragic loss of paramedics Fiona Lavelle and Tinesh Tamilkodi — both of whom have now had a scholarship established in their honour.

Brown reveals he intends to meet with their families in the coming weeks to select the recipients, which he believes will ensure their legacy can live on.

St John WA chief executive Kevin Brown in Lathlain.Credit: Ross Swanborough.

The humble St John boss speaks fondly of his own family, but is reserved when it comes to the finer details.

And while he confesses that he doesn’t always get the balance between a demanding career and home life perfect, he makes time when he can and knows he’s fortunate to have an understanding family.

“I’ve always kept my work and home life very separate because I believe when you start mixing the two, you don’t maintain division,” he tells me.

“When I drive home from work, I listen to music in the car — that’s my decompression time.

“I want to be working at work and really present at home because that’s pretty special, and it’s important to protect that.”

And if it wasn’t already blatantly clear from his job title, Brown shows me a glimpse of just how busy his role is via the back-to-back meetings filling his digital calendar.

“If this [phone] collapses, I’m buggered.”

It’s been more than a decade since he and his family uprooted their lives and moved to Australia.

He’s not yet certain what the coming years will bring, but Brown says they now consider the country home.

“I’ve lived in different places and travelled all over the world on business, but it’s pretty special coming back, landing at Perth Airport, stepping out and smelling the fresh air,” he says.

“Of all the places I’ve travelled, this is probably my favourite.

“I don’t know what the next few years will bring, but this is a beautiful part of the world... and I still have plenty to do in this job.”

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