Brian Boon

Chairman of the Board

Brian and his partner Jill live on the Sunshine Coast, and have 4 grown children and 4 grandchildren.  Brian is trying to retire!  He is a very keen sailor (including racing and teaching others how to sail and to navigate) and he enjoys bushwalking, fishing, gardening and fiddling with maintenance jobs around the house.  Brian was awarded the Meritorious Community Service Medal in the 2014 PNG New Year’s Honours and Awards for his contributions to sailing and boating in PNG.

Brian graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon into the corps of Royal Australian Engineers, where he fulfilled a number of construction, administrative and technical roles. He also studied at the Royal Military College of Science in the UK for a year, and spent a year at the Australian Defence Force Academy completing his engineering masters. Brian spent a total of 34 years in the Army in both full time and part time roles.  His last positions were as Commanding Officer of 21 Construction Regiment, and then Chief Instructor at the Regional Training Centre in Hobart.  Brian was awarded the Chief of Army Commendation for his outstanding leadership.  He also spent a total of 11 years working in various roles in PNG, including 3½ years working on infrastructure projects along the Kokoda Track.  After his full time Army work, Brian held a number of senior positions in various Commonwealth, State and Local Government organisations.

He worked as the volunteer Laos Operations and Project Manager in Phonsavan for almost 5 months, where he designed then installed a large water supply system bringing water 8km overland in a pipe, and then through a network of pipes through the village.  A 90 year old man in the village had tears in his eyes when he told Brian that it was the first time in his life that running water had been in the village.  Brian also planned the water supply systems for a further 3 villages before he handed over to his replacement.

Brian has completed the designs, costings and project budgets for three water supply systems near Khe Sanh in Vietnam – which will see water piped to 45 small villages where some 5000 villagers live.