GRAHAM Knaggs has had a long and varied career in Wattle Range Council, rising to the position of operations manager after 35 years.
Mr Knaggs said valuable life lessons from mentors, believing in the power of learning and not sweating the small stuff were key in his journey.
“My biggest mentor, that had nothing to do with work, was mum,” Mr Knaggs said.
“She did it really hard but she always just kept looking forward, as if something good will happen – she always had a positive attitude.”
Mr Knaggs aims to always be the first to work, at 6.30am, to set an example for others.
“I’m here really early to make sure the guys are here in the morning and get a good start,” he said.
“Some people might think I swan around drinking coffees before getting in at 9am as a manager, but to me, if I’m doing it and the guys see me doing it, then they go, ‘he’s getting organised, so we gotta get there’.”
The other mentor who’s lessons have stayed with Mr Knaggs was his first foreman, who he described as “hard school”.
Mr Knaggs said the foreman taught him “what to do and what not to do,” with one of those things being cutting to the chase to get a job done.
“Guys appreciate that, I know I do – if I’m going the wrong way, I want people to pull me up and change direction.”
However, Mr Knaggs never envisioned becoming a manager when, at the age of 15, he left school and joined council’s cemetery grounds staff.
After that he worked on garbage trucks when the service was operated by council and carried out roadwork.
Completing council-sponsored horticulture study, Mr Knaggs became second-in-charge of gardens before being elevated to head gardener at Penola.
In addition to all of these years of service, Mr Knaggs was constantly learning and found himself with all of the qualifications when the operations manager role came up.
“I did more courses to improve myself and I was lucky enough over the course of my journey to find that I love studying, I love learning.”
Mr Knaggs now oversees 45 staff, three supervisors and three team leaders and as operations manager, his day-to-day involves working with the gardens, construction and maintenance crews.
His primary role is working through problems with the supervisors and also listening to the concerns of ratepayers.
“I have to determine if and how to address it, whether a phone call from me can solve it or we gather troops and go fix it if we can.”
As someone who has spent their career working in council, Mr Knaggs understands criticism from the public can come with the territory, but he is proud of what the directors and his department have been able to
achieve.
“We’re making good money decisions, projects that need to be done and what people want done.
“I can confidently say that, I have been here a long time, seen the ups and downs and the changes, and my personal belief is that we’re in a really good spot.”
He is particularly proud of the next generation of council workers.
“We have a really good core group of younger crew that want to go the distance, want to learn like I did.
“So it’s awesome, it gives me great delight to see that.”
