Brock Bryce

Brock Bryce is still living in Canberra where the RAAF posted him in 1973. He is married to Anna and has two children — Damon, 35, who also lives in Canberra, and Renata, 32, who lives in New York.

Brock completed his matriculation at North Sydney Boys High School as a prefect in 1958, and went to the then RAAF College at Point Cook, VIC, as an officer cadet at the start of 1959. Two years later this became the RAAF Academy but has since been supplanted by the tri-service Australian Defence Force Academy. He gained a permanent commission as a Flying Officer in 1962 and completed a degree in aeronautical engineering at Sydney University in 1963.

Employed as an engineer officer in the RAAF, he undertook a number of postings in headquarters/staff positions, and three squadron positions on Caribou, Hercules, and Mirage aircraft. In one of the staff positions he was responsible for the airworthiness of all unmanned, or target, aircraft used in Australia; this included developmental flight trials of the Jindivik aircraft, at Woomera. While employed in Department of Air at Russell Offices in Canberra in aircraft structural fatigue and other work, he completed part-time a graduate diploma in Computing Studies. He rose to the rank of Squadron Leader. Although never posted overseas, he represented Australia at meetings held in San Antonio, Wellington and London to standardise aerospace parts.

After 20 years’ service he retired from the RAAF in early 1979 to settle in Canberra, and joined the federal public service as a computer systems officer. After stints in Department of Finance, the Industries Assistance Commission, and Department of Communications, he joined the Division of National Mapping in 1987. Two weeks later this was amalgamated with the Australian Survey Office to form an organisation 1300 strong with offices in every state; it was called AUSLIG.

Over the next 10 years AUSLIG suffered cutbacks by successive federal governments and by mid 1997 had only 100 staff. Brock held on to his job in AUSLIG through this difficult period, being variously employed in computer systems management and software development and maintenance. Those 10 years saw an enormous increase in the use of computers for map making, and for the generation, storage and presentation of digital geographic data, so it was an interesting and challenging period for him.

He retired at the end of 2001, did a little more computing work for National Mapping from home since then, and joined the SES in 2003 (hence the orange gear above). No grandchildren yet, still hoping. Hobbies cycling, reading, tennis, TV - all horribly normal.

Stop the Presses! I now have a three-year old granddaughter and a six-week old grandson. Both are in New York and I hope to see the latter for the first time when my daughter and her children come to visit us in a few weeks. Feb '11.

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