By CASEY NEILL
A CHANCE chat in a Berwick chicken shop led Chisholm CEO Maria Peters into TAFE.
She told last week’s South East Business Networks’ (SEBN) Women of Substance breakfast that she was a secondary school English teacher on maternity leave when the encounter occurred in 1989.
The woman knew Ms Peters’s husband as a good teacher, assumed she would be too and offered her a job.
She initially planned to learn from TAFE and then return to high school.
“It’s in my blood now,” she said.
Sahema Saberi and Margo Hartley were the other guest speakers at the event at Highways in Springvale on Thursday 13 November.
“I wish I was more like you,” MC Jamie Sturgess said to the trio after the presentations.
Sahema, born into the Hazara minority, arrived in Australia from Afghanistan in 2005 aged 14 with little education.
“I always dreamed that one day I would have a pen in my hand, a teacher to teach me and the right to education,” she said.
She recently completed an honours degree at the University of Melbourne.
This year Ms Hartley received a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the community.
She has lived and worked in Dandenong since she was a little girl and was shy until she was asked to be 9th Dandenong Cub Leader.
“That invitation made me feel valued,” she said.
“The promise I made to do my best is one I’ve kept ever since.”
Ms Hartley’s husband Tom started Hilton Manufacturing in 1976 in a tin shed with three employees.
He worked 7am to midnight while Ms Hartley cared for young sons Todd and Mark.
Hilton now has more than 200 staff from 25 nationalities. They’re Ms Hartley’s extended family.
She told the breakfast about a “guy from the country” who asked for a job.
His dad had worked with the company so the Hartleys were happy to offer him extra support – an apartment, furniture, even sending his supervisor to get him out of bed when he failed to show up.
“Simple acts of care can indeed change lives,” she said.
“He now owns a signwriting business.”
Ms Hartley fund-raises for Dandenong Hospital and Mercy Ships and last year opened support and empowerment centre Brand New Day.
She devotes her time to helping the isolated and needy, “those who never seem to get a break”, and refugees and asylum seekers who are trying to assimilate.
Ms Hartley said people may forget what someone said or did.
“But people will never forget how you made them feel,” she said.
Ms Peters became the Chisholm CEO in April 2010. The TAFE sector was turned on its head just four weeks later.
“We lost $30 million out of a $140 million business in six months,” she said.
“We’ve been to Hell and back the past four years.
“If I’d had a crystal ball I might have reconsidered.”
She made the decision to cut 230-plus jobs from 1400, deciding one fell swoop was preferable to “thousands of little cuts”.
“I knew I wanted Chisholm to be there in years to come.”
Ongoing funding battles have made it hard to plan for the future but Ms Peters learnt to seek advice and support while staying true to her vision.
She also reminds herself that she’s only a custodian – one hoping to leave the place in better shape than when she arrived.
“It’s not about you,” she said.
“I love and feel passionate about Chisholm.”
