Keith grew up on a dairy farm at Warrnambool in western Victoria and attended Warrnambool High School. His working life commenced with the old PMG Department in 1942 as a Technician-in-Training. He spent 18 years with the Department in the radio and telegraph engineering section, progressing from Technician to Engineer through internal examination.

He was stationed mainly in Melbourne, apart from four years at Shepparton with Radio Australia.

Keith joined the Bureau in November 1960 as an Engineer Class 3 and, at the time, was the only communications engineer on staff. He operated from the basement of 123 Latrobe Street (the Tilley's basement), planning the expansion of the Bureau's communications system, and supervising PMG staff servicing the Bureau's equipment.

In 1968 he was appointed to the position for Engineer Class 4 and in 1971 to Engineer Class 5. He held this position until his promotion to Assistant Director (Facilities) in 1975.

He acted as ADM from 1979 to 82, and for a few weeks as Director, the only Engineer to act in this position.

Keith can recall numerous career highlights, but particularly remembers the first satellite picture to be transmitted to the Bureau. Tiros-8, the first US meteorological satellite to carry an APT camera, was launched on 21 December 1963 and the first picture was received four days later. Keith was there, with Graeme Kelly, to operate the manual system—at about 1.00 pm on Christmas Day.

He was also involved in general planning, design and specification work connected with the World Weather Watch global telecommunication system (GTS). Another major highlight was computerisation of the communications centre, through a computer-operated switching system. During the period 1960–1974 the Bureau's HO Communications Centre occupied four locations, and virtually doubled in size and complexity with each move. The launch of Japan's GMS 1 on 14 July 1977 was another major event.

AS ADM, one of Keith's more unusual tasks arose as a result of an escort agency using the Bureau logo in its advertisements in a Sunday newspaper. Keith was able to take steps to ensure that the ad no longer appeared, but no one has been able to find out how this was actually accomplished.

He was seconded to the Philippines Meteorological Service for several weeks in 1972 after a typhoon struck Manila, damaging the radio and communications systems. Keith has travelled extensively throughout his career, visiting many countries, among them Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, USA and Canada, and numerous locations in Europe.

Future Plans

Keith proposes to spend some time doing things around the house (apparently Dagmar has already compiled a list), playing golf and helping his three children restore their old-style homes.

He was presented with a magnificent set of golf clubs by his colleagues and his hope is that the set will help to improve his performance on the course.

All the best for the future Keith and, in the words of Don Handcock, "may all your traffic flow smoothly, with no outages".

Bureau of Meteorology