Dr Kevin Fewster CBE AM FRSA

Dr Kevin Fewster is a leading international figure in maritime and history museums and maritime heritage. From 2007-2019 he was the Director of Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG), the world’s largest and most visited maritime museum precinct. Comprising the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory, the historic clipper ship Cutty Sark, the beautiful early 17th century Queen’s House, the Caird Library and the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre, RMG (pre Covid) attracted 2.7 million visitors each year to its venues in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. See more. 

Dr. Jackie Watts OAM
CHAIR

Jackie Watts is the inaugural Chair of the Melbourne Maritime Heritage Network Board. She holds a Doctorate in Education (RMIT), postgraduate qualifications in Teaching & Librarianship (University of Melbourne) and a Bachelor of Arts (La Trobe University). Her areas of professional expertise include secondary & tertiary education, librarianship, research, vocational education and training (VET), professional development, commerce and community activism.

Jackie has experience in both the non-profit & for-profit sectors, on and off-shore. Jackie served on Melbourne City Council between 2011 – 2020, and in 2012 became the first Chair of the Knowledge City Portfolio and Deputy Chair of the People City Portfolio holding these positions until leaving Council in 2020. These portfolios represented the most significant economic and socially progressive areas of work on Council. Jackie also represented Council with the Bay Municipalities Association of Victoria and is currently a Board member of Offshore and Specialist Ships Australia (OSSA). Jackie is a staunch advocate for greater transparency, electoral reform, heritage preservation, gender equity, responsive and respectful community engagement and genuine representative democracy at all levels of government. She has a keen and abiding interest in heritage recognition, preservation and celebration, and in particular, maritime heritage.

Ross Brewer

Ross Brewer has over 50 years experience in various facets of the shipping industry.

Having gone to sea as a deck apprentice with P&O, he then went on to work in the P&O London office where he became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers. On returning to Australia following 6 months in the New York offices of Associated Bulk Carriers, Ross developed the Australasian business for Anderson Green (later Anderson Hughes) a P&O Company. Ross became Managing Director of P&O Maritime, which encompassed the P&O Specialist Ships (Offshore Oil & Gas, Antarctic & other scientific vessels, Defence, bulk carriers, towage) until retirement.

After retirement he was appointed to the Board of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) until his retirement as Deputy Chairman in 2013.

Ross is now Chairman of Offshore & Specialist Ships Australia a company formed to collect, preserve and publicly display memorabilia associated with the Maritime Industry.

CAPT Ben Esler

CAPT Ben Esler is commander of the HMAS Cerberus which is the Royal Australian Navy’s premier training establishment in Victoria which has the core mission is training up to 6,000 Navy, Army, and Air Force personnel annually.

CAPT Esler’s seagoing appointments include training and operational service in HMA Ships Swan, Ipswich, Brisbane, Hobart, Newcastle and Manoora. In 2008-9 he commanded the Huon class coastal mine hunter crew HUNTER ONE, embarked in HMA Ships Huon and Hawkesbury. CAPT Esler completed operational seagoing service in the Middle East (Operation SLIPPER), Australia (Operation RESOLUTE) and the South Pacific (Operation TREK). He also completed a number of deployments to Southeast and Northeast Asia.

CAPT Esler has completed a wide variety of staff appointments in Navy, Joint, and Multi-Agency headquarters at the operational and strategic levels. Highlights among these appointments include Deputy Chief of Staff of the Joint Capabilities Group, Executive Officer and second-in-command of HMAS Creswell and a Deputy Director in Navy International Engagement. He also held instructional positions at the Principal Warfare Officer Faculty at HMAS Watson and as Head of the Officer Initial Training Faculty at the Royal Australian Naval College within HMAS Creswell.

Jamie Gillingham

MA, MBA Property & Business

Jamie has a background in private and public sector property development in both the UK and Australia. He is currently Principal in the Development and Infrastructure Team, CBRE. Having worked extensively across London and its surrounding boroughs, and more recently in Melbourne, Jamie has developed an understanding of the opportunities attached to considered development approaches, and the benefits that exist through the identification and celebration of an area’s assets and features to enhance its character, appreciation and social development.

As a geographer and coming from a family of sailors, Jamie, has always had an affinity with water and this has percolated through to his professional life, where he has looked to encourage the celebration of water and the history that it has helped to shape, within his work. 

Through his career Jamie has had the opportunity to work on a number of important historical development sites, including The Woolwich Royal Arsenal, South East London, 190 Strand, The Strand, London and more recently Melbourne’s Docklands. Each of these projects has involved the early engagement of stakeholder groups, and has highlighted the importance of this continued engagement to the development of an understanding of an assets value to an area, to allow key stories to be told.

Professor David Goodwin

Dr Gregory Harper

Greg is a science professional and experienced company director. He is a biological scientist who focusses on the translation of scientific knowledge into commercial, environmental and social benefits, and an honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He has been a proud member of the University’s professional staff, and he has also held senior academic, executive and governance roles in other contexts. Academic-community engagement has been a hallmark of his career.

Greg has worked in five countries and for multiple Australian innovation system actors. His partnership-building experience includes Australian R&D organisations; metro and regional universities; international universities; large international public science entities; and small, focussed service organisations. He and his wife Catherine run a private science advisory business. Greg has held multiple professional Fellowships, and his work has been recognised internationally through the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals as an RTTP.

In his private life, Greg and his wife have two adult children, and recently became proud grandparents. Greg is an experienced yachtsman, artist and adventure traveller. It is his passion for all things marine that he will bring to the MMHN along with his expertise in governance of community not for profit entities. He believes the NFP sector provides much of Australia’s social capital and has a critical role in cross-
generational knowledge exchange.

Kevin Keenan
TREASURER

Kevin holds an Honours degree in law from the University of Melbourne and comes with over 22 years of commercial, governance and executive management experience. He represents MMHN on the committee of Maritime Museums Victoria (MMV).

He was Group General Counsel and Company Secretary of AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Limited
(previously known as the National Mutual Life Association of Australasia Limited), which had
operations throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region. Kevin spearheaded the legal and corporate governance components of the complex break up and sale of that organisation. Following that, he was General Counsel and Executive Head of Legal, Risk and Compliance of Unisuper.

During his time at AXA, Kevin was responsible for the legal components for the development of the new AXA headquarters at 750 Collins St, Docklands, one of the first major commercial office developments in the precinct. Over his career, Kevin has had the opportunity to be involved in a vast array of different aspects of commercial life, from financial services to pharmaceutical development and information technology.

Kevin has a lifelong passion for all things maritime, with maritime history, and its role in shaping cultures and societies, being of particular interest.

Justin Malkiewicz

Michael O’Brien CSC

Major General (Ret.)

Michael O’Brien is a Vietnam veteran, had a 37-year Army career culminating in reaching the rank of Major General. Michael was in charge of Army logistics. He supervised the rebuilding of two ships for the Royal Australian Navy. He also supervised the recovery and identification of the bodies of 250 soldiers from the group burial at Fromelles, France on behalf of the Australian Government. He was awarded a Conspicuous Service Cross. His other management experience included being on the Board of a successful credit union for over 20 years, was Chair a stock exchange listed company as well as running an antiquarian bookshop for 17 years. He has tertiary qualifications in science and management, has written several books on history and is a frequent lecturer on cruise ships. He is on the board of several not-for-profits and has helped convene Melbourne Rare Book Week since 2012 in partnership with ANZAAB, the University of Melbourne and eight other literary institutions.

Michael has tertiary qualifications in science (Bachelor of Science (Military) and management (Master of Defence Administration, Cranfield, UK)

Dr Liz Rushen AM

Liz Rushen initially joined the Board of MMHN in October 2018, becoming Company Secretary in 2019 before taking an 18 month break in February 2023 for family reasons. Liz is an historian and author with a PhD in history from Monash University and qualifications in business studies (RMIT University) and teaching (University of Melbourne). She is a Research Associate in the Faculty of Arts, Monash University, a former Chair of the History Council of Victoria, a former Executive Director of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, and has served on many historical and community boards and committees.

In the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021, Liz was appointed a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia (General Division) for significant service to community history and heritage preservation. Liz is widely published in the field of migration history, women in colonial Australia, the social history of the Port Phillip District (Victoria), a recent book being  John Marshall: shipowner, Lloyd’s reformer and emigration agent. More recently, Liz was awarded a Creative Fellowship by the State Library Victoria to research the life and writings of Edmund Finn (‘Garryowen’).

Dr Haya Al Daghlas

Haya specialises in Project Management with wide experience in leadership roles in a wide ranges of engineering projects including Parks Victoria leadership team as the District Manager Waterways. and is currently Director of Strategy and Regulations – Maritime Sector at Abu Dhabi (AD) Ports Group.

Hon Martin Dixon

Martin was a teacher, principal and educational administrator for 19 years before being elected to the Victorian Parliament as the Member for Dromana and then Nepean for over 22 years before retiring in 2018.During his parliamentary career Martin served as Opposition Whip, Shadow Minister for Education, Skills, Tourism and Employment as well as other portfolios. He was Minister for Education from 2010 – 2014. 

Jeff Malley

Jeff was formerly Senior Research Fellow at Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER) and has significant expertise in education research, vocational education and training (VET) and strategic planning. After retirement Jeff pursued his interests in maritime heritage and vessel restoration with Bay Steamers Maritime (Ship) Museum.

Peter Quinlivian

Peter Quinlivian is a lawyer and historian. In his legal work, Peter has had a long association with the maritime sector, having been a maritime lawyer in private practice and in-house for many years.

Aislinn (Ash) Raftis

Ash is a Management Consultant specialising in strategy, reporting practices and transformation in mid-market sector organisations, indigenous business development and community sector organisations. . Ash has worked with business development services to Indigenous businesses and the community sectors Ash is passionate about Melbourne’s maritime heritage.and protecting and conserving our oceans and Australia’s rich marine life.

Steve Walker

Steve Walker is an industry professional with more than 20 years of leadership and management experience at the CEO level. Steve is the CEO of the Boating Industry Association of Victoria. Steve is responsible for industry development, boat show development and delivery, boating promotion, and industry skills planning. Steve was formerly CEO of Yachting Victoria.