My interview with Wayne had just started when it appeared to me that he was (in my words) a “techie” and also had an interesting introduction into the Down Under Club. Here’s his story:

Wayne grew up in Winnipeg, and attended Daniel McIntyre H.S. In 1982 he travelled to Australia and spent 6 months travelling to all the major cities and through the outback to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock.

He took a 1 year Telecommunication Technician course at Red River College. For the next 10 years he worked for Northern Telecom on phone systems equipment, circuit boards, etc. They had plants all over North America – USA, Calgary, Saskatoon and Toronto, to name a few. The company was faltering, so he left and went back to RRC to complete a 2 year Communications Engineering Technology course and received his diploma. Wayne then worked for 18 months at Vansco Electronics on control systems for tractors and Ford New Holland skid steer loaders. He then took off for a year travelling around the world – Fiji, New Zealand, Tasmania, Asia (four months) and Europe (six months) before returning to Canada. Back in Canada he worked at Boeing Aviation for a year.

For the past 14 years Wayne has been with Manitoba Hydro working as a telecontrol technician in a variety of locations, from 2001 to 2004 in Thompson and Grand Rapids. He has installed and maintained a variety of communication equipment such as microwave systems, fibre optics, telephone and data network..

Wayne’s introduction to the Club was at our first Folklorama pavilion in 1993 at the Holy Cross gymnasium in St Boniface. He worked at the bar with Pat McGrath and Peter Munn (the fox in the chicken coop?).

Wayne used to play a lot of volleyball and was a volunteer driver for out-of-country teams at our national team competitions.

Hopefully we’ll see him at one of our functions soon.

Gordon Keatch