Thor Prohaska

I offer this brief history of my life in order to give some background into how I got to where I am today and what skills and experience I can bring to the role of Anthem Australia's co-ordinator.

I was born in Moongunya, North Queensland, in 1957 where I spent my formative years. [more]

In 1972 I went to the Rockhampton Grammar School as a boarding student. [more]

I then went to Kelvin Grove in Brisbane to study to be a primary school teacher. [more]

After deciding that I wasn't ready to be a teacher I moved to Melbourne where I had a range of jobs that ultimately led to a career in IT. In between my day job I became increasingly involved in the pioneering of snowboarding. [more]

As one of the founders of snowboarding in Australia I had the valuable opportunity of seeing an organisation grow from nothing and go through the full life cycle. This experience showed me that hierarchical authoritarian organisational structures are usually not the best way for human beings to manage group activities. [more]

After my intense involvement in snowboarding I began to question if what I was doing was of real value or just an indulgence. I raised this question with a person whose wisdom I respected and his response was that people need to have holidays and recreation and that I was helping them in that way. This still did not completely satisfy my feeling that there was something else that I had to do and that there were 'bigger fish out there to fry'. By this point I had reached two of my goals in snowboarding, which were to gain access to all ski resorts for snowboarders and to promote the sport to the point were it was on the verge of becoming a mainstream sport. So in late 1987 I returned to my former life in I.T. and over the next 5 years gradually scaled back my involvement in snowboarding.

Since 1987 I have worked as a Technical Writer and more recently as a Software Test Analyst. For a summary of my career click here. The experience I have had in these roles has given me further insight into the resolution of issues. I have learnt about how large scale computer systems are developed and what needs to be done to ensure that they are implemented. I have seen many failures and lost opportunities that have been caused by not including the people who knew vital information. I have seen outright deception to hide failures or make something look better than it really was. As a professional software tester I had to resolve issues and associated conflicts.

I believe that by combining the power of the internet with the real networks that connect us to our family and friends, acquaintances and colleagues, that we can more effectively advance the common wealth of all Australians. I see an improved national anthem, that unites rather than divides, as one of the ways towards this goal.

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