President

Frank Bakker

BEng, MIEAust

Frank is a Mechanical Engineer with 40 years’ experience in the Power Industry. The last 15 years he has been actively in Project Management, currently working in a project operational readiness specialist role. Frank is an avid bushwalker, cross country skier and cyclist. He has qualifications as a white-water instructor and sea kayak senior instructor. Now resident in Cooma for 32 years, with wife and two adult sons. He is keen to expand and promote activities for both residents and visitors in the Monaro and sees the Monaro Rail Trail as a great way to do this.

Vice-President

Rick Moor

BA(Mil), GDAE

Rick served in the Australian Regular Army for 40 years. During this period, he was posted to most Australian states and territories plus the USA, Great Britain, East Timor, PNG and Afghanistan. In his younger days he was an active mountaineer culminating in participation in the successful 1988 Australian Bicentennial Everest Expedition. After retiring from the Army Rick established a small business and worked as a crisis management consultant throughout northern Australia, PNG and South East Asia. Rick volunteers in the veteran’s community and holds executive / board positions in two Ex Service Organisations. He is also an active Nordic and downhill skier and mountain biker and has completed, in recent years, several long distance (500 to 1000km) unsupported bike tours. Rick resides in Jerrabomberra.

Secretary

Andrew Carter

BSc. PGDip Business Admin

Andrew is a resident of Canberra where he has worked in technical roles in Forestry and Botany at the ANU. He spent several years in Nepal as part of an Australian Government aid project in community forestry and saw the importance of bottom up communication when dealing with small communities. The last 15 years of his working life was in private enterprise with his award-winning small business in retail and hospitality. During this time, he served on the executive of the industry marketing group and professional associations. He and his wife have ridden many cycle trails in Europe and New Zealand and have seen how rail trails are an assured way to bring new life to small business in rural areas.

Treasurer and Public Officer

Michael Daniel

Michael Daniel has lived in Steeple Flat near Nimmitabel for the last 15 years. He is a system engineer (nearing reƟrement) who is currently working with Snowy Hydro in Cooma. He has cycled all his life as a tourist, to keep healthy and have fun, and to commute, when he worked in the city. He believes the rail trail would rejuvenate the economy and lifestyle of the local villages, especially villages like Nimmitabel that are not exposed to the Jindabyne centric winter and summer alpine sports tourism. He looks forward to the day he can commute to work from Nimmitabel, off road and in safe and pleasant surroundings.

Committee Members

Ken Lister

BEng (Elect), CPEng, FIEAust, MAICD

Ken has over 40 years’ experience in the energy industry including generation, transmission and distribution, until retiring from Snowy Hydro Ltd in 2016 as Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Ken was responsible the safety, operations, engineering & maintenance as well as CAPEX and OPEX projects of this multi-state business with assets approx. $3Bn and responsibility for over 300 personnel. Ken has been Member and Chair of several NFP Boards including as Australian Lead for the guidance and support of a Children’s Home in Uganda.

Charlie Maslin

B AgEcon

Charlie has been farming in the Bombala area since the early 1980’s. He is passionate about managing his property to the best of his ability and looks to maintaining ground cover, reducing weeds and returning streams to a better ecological state. A keen bike rider, he enjoys the local back roads and trails and values them as a way of seeing the beauty of the local area. He has ridden rail trails in NZ and Europe and is confident the proposed MRT would be a world class destination. Charlie is a landholder with a section of the rail corridor running through his property. He believes the rail trail might cause some inconvenience in the running of his business but looks to the long-term benefit to the district and he is excited about the prospects such a project would offer to this region, especially for the Bombala community.

Huw Kingston

Adventurer, Environmentalist, Entrepreneur & Writer

Award-winning adventurer, environmentalist and writer, Huw has a long history in cycling both from his writing, his own journeys and as an event and tour organiser. For 20 years until 2017 his business Wild Horizons ran some of Australia’s largest and best-known MTB events and he continues to consult in this area. Huw still runs a small number of cycling tours in Australia, NZ, Italy and elsewhere each year. Huw is a travel writer, contributing to a wide range of publications here and overseas specialising on human powered pursuits - trekking, mountain biking, ski touring, kayaking - and sustainability issues. Huw has numerous awards to his name including the Australian Geographic Spirit of Adventure Award and was named one of Time Magazine’s 25 Worldwide Responsibility Pioneers for his work reducing plastic waste and pollution. Huw is also an ambassador for Save the Children Australia, The Adventure Travel Trade Association and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

David Byrne

BEng (Civil), PGDip Management, CPEng, MIEAust

Dave has over 35 years’ experience in project management and leadership including Director of Engineering Services - Cooma-Monaro Shire Council, Quality Manager Special Projects - NSW Public Works, Drainage Agent - Costains Civil Engineering UK. Dave also held various industry and leadership roles including: Secretary of the South East Australian Transport Strategy Inc. 13 years, Executive Committee member of the NSW Water Directorate 11 years, Chair of the Monaro Group Engineers Australia 13 years, Cooma Rotary 14 years. David resides in Cooma.

Fay Steward

BSc, PGDip Urban & Regional Planning, PGDip Business Admin.

Fay’s career spans some 40 years developing strategic land use policy and strategy for NSW Government land planning and management agencies, as well as entrepreneurial roles with Vodafone, and venture capital firms in the telecommunications industry. She has held executive management roles in the private and public sectors; most recently as Executive Director Land Planning and Management for the ACT Government. Here, Fay was responsible for Canberra’s urban services, National Arboretum Canberra, commercial forests, and national parks. Fay has worked with many community organizations to establish co-operative agreements managing public land for community benefit. Now retired and living in Bega, Fay is a small-scale beekeeper, and Director of the SE Region Local Land Services Board. As a cyclist, she is keen to assist development of trails throughout NSW for all ages and abilities.

Peter Coumbis

LLM (Syd), MCom (NSW), Dip Prac Man (QLS)

Peter recently stepped down as General Counsel of the Australian InsƟtute of Marine Science (AIMS) in North Queensland. His role at AIMS since 2009 focussed on corporate management and government policy as well as preparing contracts in relation to intellectual property, commercial property, construction law, vessel charters, research collaborations, IT, and consultancy service agreements. Peter’s role included acting as its Senior Lawyer, Manager of the Commercial Services Group, its FOI, and Privacy Officer and PID Act Investigator. Peter has had a long career in the private sector which included senior commercial partner with Ashurst and corporate counsel at Westfield. Since moving to Cooma, he has taken up the honorary roles of director and chairperson at the Sir William Hudson Nursing Home and continues to be engaged in legal work on a part-time basis as Special Counsel for AIMS and for various Commonwealth government agencies in a consultancy capacity. Peter resides in Cooma.

Rosanne Coumbis

A project manager for over 30 years Rosanne, worked in the construction industry on large local, state and federal government funded projects. She specialized in remote area construction of schools, infrastructure, shopping centres, and police stations. Rosanne managed projects throughout Queensland, the Northern Territory, and the Torres Strait Islands as well as in Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and the Philippines. At a community level Rosanne initiated Rosie’s Run to encourage women to participate in sport. The event grew from 20 participants in 1988 to over 4,000 in 2003. It became the largest female-only fun run in Australia. Rosanne received the International Women’s Day Award and the Australian Sports Medal at the 2000 Olympics from then Prime Minister John Howard for her achievements in this regard.

Craig Stonestreet

Craig is one of the most experienced track builders, trail management plan and trail project managers in the country. In the past year or 2 he has project managed the build of the mountain bike trails at Eden (80km, $4.5million), Narooma (60km, $4million) and is currently finishing off Tumbarumba ($3million). He lived in Jindabyne for 20 years where he set up the first bike shop and was President of Jindabyne Trail Stewards. He is now based in Tumbarumba.

John Neven

John lives in Bombala and is a small business owner. He has first-hand knowledge of the need for economic development to offset long term negative changes in economic prospects of his community. He believes that tourism, by helping local business, is one way of helping the local community. John is a keen cyclist and he and his wife have ridden trail trails in Victoria and is most impressed with how in NSW, the rail trail in Tumbarumba has bought new tourism and prompted new business openings. John has been involved in planning and implementing new recreation trails in Bombala and is keen to see the MRT become a greater part of cycling tourism in Bombala.

MRT Community Liaison officers

Mary Walters (Cooma)

Cate Spencer (Michelago)

Merrita Coomb (Bombala)

Membership secretary: Jo Cottle

Webmaster: Frank van de Loo