Finance & Audit Officer
John Brisbin migrated to Australia in the last term of Paul Keating and the first wave of the internet revolution. He helped bring the web to organisations as varied as the NSW Environmental Protection Agency and Nature Conservation Council of NSW to the Australia-Tibet Council and the award-winning ReachOut Youth Suicide Prevention initiative. Finally realising that the deepest human issues are not reducible to a digital toolset, he dove into the UWS Social Ecology program under Prof Stuart Hill and emerged with a new perspective and a Masters AppSci in Complexity Theory and Organisational Development in 2004. With a new baby on the way John took over the Coordinator’s role for the Arid Lands Environment Centre in Alice Springs, where he was embraced by the Desert Knowledge CRC community, including Dr Mark Stafford-Smith who (among others!) introduced John to the beauty of Australia’s rangelands. He was selected as the first CEO of the Northern Territory NRM Board for a short but passionate tour of duty. By 2007 John was back in tech based in Townsville with a client base of Cooperative Research Centres and NRM organisations. In 2015 he was elected Chair of the Northern Gulf regional NRM, and served on various panels and committees associated with the rangelands. John continues to serve as a Director of the Mitchell River Watershed Management Group and seems to be busy writing a large number of manuscripts in his head. The opportunity to serve the ARS came as a welcome development. John says it is a chance for him to give back and say thank you to the community of passionate rangeland folk who have been so generous with their time and insights over the years.