ANNE PICK­LES PSM, BA, GRAD DIP LIB SCI

FORMER BOARD MEMBER, PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT

FIRE AND RES­CUE NSW

Anne Pick­les is Man­ag­er Capa­bil­i­ty Pro­gram and Pol­i­cy in the Oper­a­tional Capa­bil­i­ty

Direc­torate of Fire and Res­cue NSW (FRN­SW). Anne devel­oped FRNSW’s emer­gency

man­age­ment pol­i­cy and plan­ning frame­work and leads the devel­op­ment of its emer­gency

man­age­ment plans.

Anne has worked for FRN­SW for more than 30 years, in which time she has been involved

with near­ly every aspect of the ser­vice. Start­ing as the Librar­i­an, she was a founder mem­ber

of the Aus­tralasian Librar­i­ans in Emer­gency Ser­vices (ALIES) net­work. Anne then moved

into admin­is­tra­tion, gain­ing expe­ri­ence in knowl­edge man­age­ment, pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dure

devel­op­ment, gov­er­nance and risk, strat­e­gy and plan­ning, and the work­ings of gov­ern­ment.

In 2005 Anne was award­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal for out­stand­ing lead­er­ship in the

devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of infor­ma­tion man­age­ment prac­tices and coor­di­nat­ing the

devel­op­ment of pro­ce­dures tar­get­ing the infor­ma­tion needs of fire­fight­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in

rela­tion to work health and safe­ty. Anne has also been award­ed the FRN­SW Long Ser­vice

and Good Con­duct Medal and two Clasps.

Anne was involved in the start-up of FRNSW’s Lessons Learned Cen­tre and works with

fire­fight­ers to gath­er and analyse oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence and turn it into explic­it knowl­edge

to dri­ve con­tin­u­ous improve­ment in safe­ty and ser­vice deliv­ery. Anne cham­pi­ons diver­si­ty

and inclu­sion in the devel­op­ment of FRN­SW strat­e­gy and pol­i­cy and is a mem­ber of the

FRN­SW Women’s Inclu­sive Net­work.

Anne became involved in WAFA when she attend­ed and was inspired by the 2018 WAFA

Con­fer­ence in Welling­ton, New Zealand. Anne was elect­ed to the WAFA Board in 2018 and

became Pres­i­dent at the 2021 Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing. Anne is also a mem­ber of the

Aus­tralasian Women in Emer­gen­cies Net­work.

Anne has a Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma in Library Sci­ence and a Bach­e­lor of Arts degree from

Syd­ney Uni­ver­si­ty. She reads wide­ly and is an active cit­i­zen sci­en­tist con­duct­ing wildlife

mon­i­tor­ing in her Local Gov­ern­ment Area.

As a vol­un­teer, Anne con­tributed 20 years ser­vice to 2MBS-FM, a com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion

broad­cast­ing clas­si­cal music. Cur­rent­ly, Anne does bush regen­er­a­tion with her local coun­cil

and the Friends of Lord Howe Island. She enjoys eco-tour­ing in Aus­tralia and New Zealand

and has a par­tic­u­lar fond­ness for islands.

JOHN PAPPAS FIML, MAICD, MICDA

BOARD MEMBER/ TREASURER 

QUEENSLAND FIRE AND EMERGENCY SERVICES

John Pappas is currently Director, Regional Operations for Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES). He is the Fire and Rescue service-lead for Central Region responsible for the overall service delivery, management, and performance of Fire and Rescue Stations between Agnes Water, the Whitsundays and west to the South Australian border. 

His interest in firefighting started in March 1994 when he joined the (then) NSW Bush Fire Service as a junior member in northern Sydney. This proved to be the catalyst of his fire service career and commenced with the ACT Fire Brigade in 2002. In 2011 John was promoted to the rank of Station Officer and, transitioned to QFES in 2014. He has undertaken various roles at the rank of Inspector, Superintendent and Chief Superintendent including Zone Commander, Manager Operations Business, Area Commander, Director Regional Development, Director Regional Operations and Executive Manager, School of Fire and Emergency Services Training. 

John is a strong supporter of equality and inclusiveness believing that everyone is unique and valued; and that everyone brings something to the table. He has been a member of WAFA since 2017, is a QFES Ally of Inclusion embracing and promoting the fairness, equity and inclusion programs of QFES and a member of the International Association of Women in Fire & Emergency Services. 

He is known for his strong business acumen and strategic foresight and holds extensive qualifications in Government, Emergency and Firefighting Management including a Bachelor of Emergency Service, a Graduate Certificate in Business (Public Sector Management) and a Graduate Diploma in Strategic Leadership. He is currently completing an MBA and has professional membership with the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Australian Institute of Emergency Services, Institute of Community Directors Australia, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Managers and Leaders. 

Away from firefighting John has an interest in the moving camera having had a concurrent career in television production between 1998 and 2014. He was heavily involved with the Olympics broadcast movement for the 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, 2006 Torino Winter and 2008 Beijing Olympics.

To escape reality, John frequents his ancestral roots in the Mediterranean and tours the world by motorbike.

KELSEY TARA­BI­NI

BNHCRC

Kelsey is cur­rent­ly work­ing with the Bush­fire and Nat­ur­al Haz­ards CRC in the DEL­WP Research Pro­gram and Part­ner­ship Devel­op­ment as a sup­port role. Kelsey is an active vol­un­teer fire fight­er pre­vi­ous­ly with the South Aus­tralian Coun­try Fire Ser­vice for three years. Since Kelsey has moved to Vic­to­ria she has con­tin­ued her vol­un­teer fire fight­ing with the Vic­to­ri­an Coun­try Fire Authority.

Kelsey is a Youth Ambas­sador for the WAFA board and is inter­est­ed in col­lab­o­rat­ing with agen­cies around Aus­tralia to see how they can best sup­port young women who are staff or vol­un­teer with­in agen­cies.

Kelsey comes from an aca­d­e­m­ic back­ground and works in project man­age­ment through the BNHCRC and is inter­est­ed in explor­ing the gaps that exist in research with youth in the emer­gency services.

ARI­ANA HEN­DER­SON

PARKS VIC­TO­RIA 

Ari­ana com­menced her career with Parks Vic­to­ria in Decem­ber 2004 as a Sea­son­al Ranger at Albert Park in Mel­bourne, and con­tin­ued as a Park Ranger in Vis­i­tor Ser­vices and Events man­age­ment. In 2006 Ari­ana joined the Edu­ca­tion and Inter­pre­ta­tion Team, where she launched Parks Victoria’s Junior Ranger Pro­gram and Ranger Roo kids receiv­ing Excel­lence Awards from the Inter­pre­ta­tion Aus­tralia Asso­ci­a­tion and the Aus­tralian Mar­ket­ing Institute. 

In 2010 Ari­ana moved into the Fire and Emer­gency Ser­vices Direc­torate and under­took a strate­gic review of Parks Victoria’s Emer­gency Man­age­ment Plan­ning process. In 2015 she com­menced her cur­rent role Man­ag­er Fire and Emer­gency Recov­ery and leads the statewide coor­di­na­tion of recov­ery pro­grams fol­low­ing emer­gen­cies on Parks Vic­to­ria man­aged land. 

Since 2006 Ari­ana has been a Gen­er­al Fire-fight­er attain­ing Crew Leader and Oper­a­tions Offi­cer 1 accred­i­ta­tions, cur­rent­ly work­ing towards Burn Offi­cer in Charge. She is a recip­i­ent of the Nation­al Emer­gency Medal recog­nis­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the 2009 Black Sat­ur­day bushfires. 

In 2015 Ari­ana co-pre­sent­ed ​‘Bring your Lip­stick’ at the AFAC con­fer­ence high­light­ing gen­der equi­ty issues with­in the emer­gency ser­vices sec­tor. Since then Ari­ana has been a strong advo­cate through her involve­ment on the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment, Land, Water and Plan­ning (DEL­WP) ​‘Women in Fire and Emer­gen­cies Lead­er­ship Action Plan’; and as a mem­ber of Parks Victoria’s Diver­si­ty and Inclu­sion Lead­er­ship Group. She is proud of her achieve­ment pro­duc­ing the 2016 Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Day ​‘Burn­ing Ambi­tion’ video high­light­ing women in fire and emergency. 

Ari­ana has com­plet­ed a Bach­e­lor of Applied Sci­ence dou­ble degree in Parks, Recre­ation and Her­itage and Eco­tourism, where she received the Dean’s Award for Excel­lence and the Inter­pre­ta­tion Aus­tralia award for Aca­d­e­m­ic Excellence. 

When not at work, Ari­ana is in pur­suit of tick­ing off her 101 dreams list. She has already accom­plished walk­ing 900km Camino de San­ti­a­go across Spain, the Quar­ry trail to Machu Pic­chu in Peru, sail­ing the Greek islands, a Shaman­ic heal­ing retreat in Mex­i­co, danc­ing Sal­sa in Cuba, vis­it­ing Moroc­co, the Gala­pa­gos Islands, and dri­ving an RV across USA and Cana­da to the Cal­gary stam­pede. Dur­ing her most recent adven­ture to Africa in 2018 she sum­mit­ted Mount Kil­i­man­jaro, saw the great migra­tion in the Serengeti and vis­it­ed the Maa­sai Mara. In her spare time, she attempts to speak very bad Span­ish, enjoys tak­ing pho­tos and writes draft nov­els which she hopes to one day share with the world through her website. 

Burn­ing Ambi­tion https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​8​H​o​C​N​W​1XZ4A

EMMA GAM­BLE -

NSW RUR­AL FIRE SERVICE

I am a vol­un­teer fire­fight­er with NSWRFS, at Forbes Cen­tral Brigade. I’m also part of RAFT.

My pas­sion, is to be a mentor/​advocate for any­one want­i­ng to join a brigade or RAFT, to help nav­i­gate from the begin­ning to ease into becom­ing the fire­fight­er they see them­selves being.

For the past 12 months I have already assist­ed WAFA as a mem­ber of the Mar­ket­ing and Mem­ber­ship Offi­cer, a role which I enjoyed to the point that I want­ed to engage fur­ther with the board and I was hap­py to have been elect­ed onto the board at the last AGM.

I am a ware­house Offi­cer work­ing towards my cert 4 in Ware­hous­ing and Logistics.

ANNA STEPHAN -

NORTH­ERN TER­RI­TO­RY FIRE AND RES­CUE SERVICE

Anna Stephan Fire­fight­er North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice (NTFRS), Alice Springs

Anna grew up in a small vil­lage in Ger­many where her Grand­fa­ther had been the cap­tain of the vol­un­teer brigade for 25 years. Inspired by the work the local brigade car­ried out for the com­mu­ni­ty she joined the group aged 16 and con­tin­ued to serve as a mem­ber until she depart­ed for Aus­tralia in 2005. 

After set­tling down in Alice Springs she joined the Rur­al Vol­un­teer Fire Brigade (ASRVFB) in 2010 and was part of the task force that fought the cam­paign fires of 2011, brought on by unprece­dent­ed rains the year before.

Anna was suc­cess­ful in join­ing the NTFRS as a recruit in mid-2012 and after absolv­ing the four month recruit course in Dar­win has been sta­tioned in Alice Springs since. She cur­rent­ly holds the rank of Senior Firefighter.

Anna antic­i­pates to be able to assist the WAFA board through her expe­ri­ence in sales, pro­mo­tions and spon­sor­ships, (event) organ­i­sa­tion­al skills and peo­ple skills and hopes to take away valu­able infor­ma­tion to pass on to the NTFRS to assist the organ­i­sa­tion in grow­ing the num­ber of full-time female fire­fight­ers across the NT.

She and her hus­band Matt, a para­medic with St John Ambu­lance, have been liv­ing in Alice Springs over 10 years and share a pas­sion for camp­ing, fos­sick­ing and the love for their dogs (past and present), good wine, fish­ing and trav­el­ling. They wel­comed a daugh­ter in 2018 and are look­ing for­ward to her grow­ing up and show­ing her the raw, nat­ur­al beau­ty the Red Cen­tre holds.

NADIA RHODES -

ACT PARKS AND CON­SER­VA­TION SERVICE

Nadia has worked as a Field Offi­cer and Ranger in the ACT since 1997 where she start­ed as one of the very few women with­in the ACT Parks and Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice. Her cur­rent role is Ranger in Charge of land man­age­ment pro­grams with­in the catch­ment area of Googong Fore­shores locat­ed in New South Wales to the South East of Can­ber­ra. Nadia under­takes var­i­ous fire man­age­ment roles includ­ing Inci­dent Con­troller, Divi­sion­al Com­man­der as well as spe­cialised avi­a­tion roles, such as Air Obser­va­tion, Spe­cial Intel­li­gence Oper­a­tions, Air radio and sys­tems oper­a­tions and Incendiary/​Igni­tion Supervisor.

Nadia has lead the ini­tia­tive of devel­op­ing the ACT Parks Fire Women’s Sup­port Group which aims to increase par­tic­i­pa­tion of females in the organ­i­sa­tion while pro­mot­ing and devel­op­ing staff. The Sup­port group work­shop and dis­cuss impor­tant issues such as fire ground hygiene, PPE/C, train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, fit­ness and men­tor­ing and also runs female focussed train­ing ses­sions based around fire­fight­ing oper­a­tions. This year the group will work on pro­duc­ing a set of repro­duc­tive health guide­lines for the organ­i­sa­tion as well as a return to work strat­e­gy to help women in the work­place under­stand their options when return­ing to work from mater­ni­ty leave.

Nadia has enjoyed her career in a more male dom­i­nat­ed work place and has wit­nessed the pos­i­tive change that an increase in diver­si­ty and inclu­sion has had in the organ­i­sa­tion. She men­tored, pro­vid­ed guid­ance and con­tin­u­al­ly inspires many new Rangers and fire fight­ers to chal­lenge them­selves in this reward­ing career. Nadia has been a mem­ber of WAFA since its ear­ly days and is excit­ed to become a board mem­ber to expand her skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence and be able to bring back new inno­v­a­tive ideas to the ACT.

ALICE LAVEN­DER -

NEW SOUTH WALES RUR­AL FIRE SERVICE

I have been a vol­un­teer in the NSW Rur­al Fire Ser­vices since 2017 as part of Medowie Brigade in the beau­ti­ful Port Stephens. I don’t have any fam­i­ly links to fire­fight­ing, but a friend encour­aged me to join up and once I start­ed it became a new­found pas­sion of mine.

Achieve­ments I am proud of from my time in the ser­vice so far include being one of the first female BA Oper­a­tors in our brigade.

I have been inspired by the work of WAFA since attend­ing the con­fer­ence in New Zealand in 2018, the amount of knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence that is pos­sessed by oth­er women across the var­i­ous emer­gency ser­vices is a great resource for those who are just start­ing out.

I would like to help in spread­ing the WAFA mes­sage of equi­ty & empow­er­ment through the shar­ing of this knowl­edge, and in turn, expand­ing on my own learn­ing experiences.

Out­side of fire­fight­ing, my pro­fes­sion­al back­ground is in accounts and admin­is­tra­tion man­age­ment. In my spare time I enjoy going camp­ing and spend­ing as much time out­doors as I can.

CATHER­INE JOL­LY -

TAS­MA­NIA FIRE SERVICE

Cather­ine joined the Tas­ma­nia Fire ser­vice as a junior mem­ber in 1997 fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of her father. She is cur­rent­ly an offi­cer in a vol­un­teer brigade in the south of the State with respon­si­bil­i­ty for the strate­gic train­ing plan and oth­er admin­is­tra­tive duties on top of her active urban and rur­al oper­a­tional role. Recent­ly she has also a com­menced as a vol­un­teer train­ing instruc­tor, enjoy­ing the chal­lenge of shar­ing skills and knowl­edge with new mem­bers from across the South­ern Region.

Cather­ine is pas­sion­ate about increas­ing the diver­si­ty across the emer­gency ser­vices sec­tor to improve resilience in the future and also has inter­ests in impacts of weath­er and cli­mate on nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, warn­ings frame­works and safe­ty. She has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the eval­u­a­tion of fire spread mod­el used in Aus­tralia (a joint two year col­lab­o­ra­tive project with the Bureau of Mete­o­rol­o­gy, AFAC and NSW RFS) and is train­ing in fire behav­iour analysis.

Out­side of her vol­un­teer com­mit­ments with the Tas­ma­nia Fire Ser­vice, Cather­ine is a qual­i­fied civ­il engi­neer, with expe­ri­ence in local gov­ern­ment engi­neer­ing, hydraulics, hydrol­o­gy, water resource man­age­ment and flood fore­cast­ing. She is cur­rent­ly employed by the Bureau of Mete­o­rol­o­gy where she has been has been an oper­a­tional Flood Fore­cast­er, issu­ing warn­ings and work­ing with the emer­gency man­age­ment sec­tor and has also con­tributed to a num­ber of oth­er water-relat­ed projects over the years. In between work and vol­un­teer com­mit­ments she enjoys gar­den­ing, sail­ing, play­ing music with friends and bushwalking. 

KATIE MACWILLIAMS -

DBCA WA

Katie has worked for the Depart­ment of Bio­di­ver­si­ty, Con­ser­va­tion and Attrac­tions and its pre­de­ces­sors for 11 years with a focus on land man­age­ment oper­a­tions and nature con­ser­va­tion, with a focus more recent­ly in fire man­age­ment. Katie has been involved with the Women in Fire Man­age­ment Action Plan work­ing group since its incep­tion and believes strong­ly in work being under­tak­en by the depart­ment to address areas of sys­temic uncon­scious bias and can see the ben­e­fit of the changes being applic­a­ble to all employ­ees cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and the organisation.

MICHELLE ENGELS­MAN — 

FIRE AND RES­CUE, NSW

Michelle Engels­man is a Qual­i­fied Fire­fight­er cur­rent­ly work­ing with­in the Fire Inves­ti­ga­tion and Research Unit (FIRU) of Fire & Res­cue NSW (FRN­SW). A retired Olympic swim­mer, Michelle has a BSc Hon­ours in Chem­istry, a Mas­ters in Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies and Diplo­mas in Man­age­ment and Fundraising.

Sup­port­ed by FRN­SW, Michelle is cur­rent­ly a PhD stu­dent research­ing fire­fight­er expo­sure risks and sub­se­quent repro­duc­tive effects, research that is ongo­ing and involves bio­mon­i­tor­ing and oth­er assess­ments to deter­mine expo­sure pro­files. Pre­vi­ous research includes a 2015 study on smoke alarms includ­ing real­is­tic burn sce­nar­ios in a full scale repli­ca house, analysing ten­abil­i­ty lim­its with­in haz­ardous atmos­pheres and over­lay­ing safe egress times on smoke alarm acti­va­tion times.

Her employ­ment at FRN­SW has includ­ed her being an active duty fire­fight­er sta­tioned at Bankstown Fire Sta­tion, fol­lowed by Lid­combe Fire Station.

Pre­vi­ous employ­ment has seen her work­ing with­in the fields of social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, and she is pas­sion­ate about human rights.

Michelle is the moth­er of a tod­dler and a lover of gar­den­ing and surfing.

STEPHANIE LOOI -

NSW RUR­AL FIRE SERVICE

Stephanie is a vol­un­teer with the NSW Rur­al Fire Ser­vice. She per­forms mul­ti­ple roles in the Ser­vice, includ­ing as a remote area oper­a­tor, heli­copter res­cue crewie, train­er and asses­sor, as well as a mem­ber of a local brigade.

She is pas­sion­ate about advo­cat­ing for women in remote area fire­fight­ing and avi­a­tion and pre­sent­ed at Afac in 2017 on sup­port­ing women in remote area fire­fight­ing through learn­ing and development.

Stephanie is a qual­i­fied optometrist, with a Mas­ters in Pub­lic Health as well as a Cert IV in train­ing and assessment.

In her pro­fes­sion­al life, she has worked in many facets of health, includ­ing clin­i­cal prac­tice, advo­ca­cy, project man­age­ment, research man­age­ment, prod­uct devel­op­ment and the devel­op­ment and exe­cu­tion of strategy.

DON­NA WHEAT­LEY — 

FORMER PRESIDENT AND BOARD MEMBER

MET­RO­POL­I­TAN FIRE BRIGADE, MELBOURNE

Don­na Wheat­ley is a Com­man­der with the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Fire Brigade (MFB) in Mel­bourne. With a pro­fes­sion­al back­ground in Gestalt Psy­chother­a­py, she was work­ing in fam­i­ly coun­selling and advo­ca­cy roles before she joined the oper­a­tional ranks of the MFB in 2003. She con­tin­ued work in pri­vate prac­tice and research for a num­ber of years as her fire­fight­ing career devel­oped. Mov­ing into lead­er­ship as an Offi­cer in 2008 the pos­si­bil­i­ties grew and engaged her aspi­ra­tions for progress with­in the ranks and devel­op­ing influ­ence with­in the cul­ture of MFB.

Over the 15 years of ​“catch­ing trucks” there have been many oppor­tu­ni­ties to explore beyond the day to day of emer­gency response – as excit­ing and chal­leng­ing as some of these respons­es have been. Don­na has worked across many direc­torates at MFB includ­ing Oper­a­tions, Com­mu­ni­ty Resilience, Strat­e­gy and Inno­va­tion, Emer­gency Man­age­ment, the Office of the CEO and Train­ing. These years saw her pro­mote through the ranks; break­ing ​“glass ceil­ings” along the way. An exu­ber­ant and opti­mistic com­mit­ment has deliv­ered many rewards for great effort, includ­ing vol­un­teer work in the employ­ee assis­tance pro­gram and numer­ous com­mu­ni­ty edu­ca­tion pro­grams. Vol­un­teer­ing out­side of MFB in Cam­bo­dia, Peru and the Philip­pines as well as ongo­ing local vol­un­teer roles, and tak­ing edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties with the Aus­tralian Insti­tute of Police Man­age­ment (AIMP) and Lead­er­ship Vic­to­ria (Williamson’s Com­mu­ni­ty Lead­er­ship Pro­gram 2015) and exten­sive com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment activ­i­ties with MFB have all added depth to a colour­ful career.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty to men­tor both with­in the brigade and in the com­mu­ni­ty has been abun­dant and grat­i­fy­ing over the years of work­ing with MFB. Hav­ing start­ed out in the 90s employed in the cor­po­rate are­na of MFB, the increased expo­sure to var­i­ous facets of the organ­i­sa­tion has cre­at­ed ongo­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with­in diverse posi­tions with myr­i­ad per­spec­tives on organ­i­sa­tion­al pri­or­i­ty – allow­ing a breadth to the reflec­tion that Don­na brings to her men­tor­ing and work roles. With a diverse ter­tiary edu­ca­tion, includ­ing a Bach­e­lor degree and numer­ous post grad­u­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tions, the thirst for learn­ing has nev­er been quenched. Don­na is grow­ing­ly dri­ven by the under­stand­ing that our great­est lessons come from life and some­times through the most unex­pect­ed teach­ers; with a deep com­mit­ment to explo­ration of the ​“grow­ing edge”, life­long learn­ing is a ten­ant in the com­mit­ment of liv­ing a whole heart­ed life.