CONRAD ERMERT

Brigadier Conrad Ermert (Retd)

I enjoyed my time at NSBHS which has left me with a legacy of great friends, wonderful memories of good teachers, a great cadet unit and a certain satisfaction of having been to one of Sydney’s great schools. I joined the school cadets fairly early (at the time my rifle was taller than I, and I haven’t grown much since) and worked my way to the exalted rank of Cadet Under Officer. I eventually managed to pass the Leaving Certificate / matriculation with results sufficient for a Commonwealth Scholarship. As it turned out I did not take up the Scholarship, choosing instead to accept a place at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, together with Brian Mitchell, our Senior Under Officer, and Fred Stahl, the Drum Major of the band.

Four years later, having graduated from the engineering class at RMC, I went to Melbourne to complete my studies in electronic engineering at RMIT. Most importantly, however, in Melbourne I met and married my wife, Muriel, with whom I have been fortunate enough to spend our forty-three years of marriage. At the time Muriel had completed her nursing and post-graduate theatre training and was working as a theatre sister at the then Footscray & District Hospital.

In May 1966 I found myself posted to an Army Field Workshop bound for Vietnam where we spent a year maintaining in service all the equipment of the Australian Forces. Being the first workshop there our year was spent trying to create workshop facilities in the sand hills of Vung Tau while living under WWII tentage that leaked badly throughout the monsoon season. However it was an experience and I was fortunate enough to see a bit of the country, often from the open door of a Huey helicopter. In the meantime Muriel organized a house removal to Ingleburn and held a job as a medical representative.

On my return from Vietnam we had yet another house removal, this time to Monegeetta, Victoria, where our two children were born. Then another move to Wodonga, Victoria, where we stayed for less than a year, leaving for three year in the UK. We lived first in Shrivenham where I completed my Masters in Guided Weapons Systems at the Royal Military College of Science. Then we moved to Purley near London where I was ‘on loan’ to the British Ministry of Defence, in the project team developing the RAPIER guided weapon system, later to be used so effectively in the Falklands.

After a wonderful three years in UK we returned to Australia and a variety of different postings in Perth, Brisbane, Queenscliff, Melbourne and Canberra. While in Canberra I was also appointed as an Honorary Aide-de-Camp to the Governor General (Bill Haydon) which was a fascinating experience. For most of those years Muriel brought up the family and entertained wonderfully, as well as shifting house 21 times while continuing her work as a Theatre Sister for various hospitals and surgeons. Compared to that my job was easy and after promotion to Brigadier and a posting as Head of Corps I retired from the Army in 1990.

We then moved back to Melbourne, where we intend to stay! Here I spent the first five years as the Director of Facilities at the Alfred Group of Hospitals, responsible for the construction and commissioning of a radio-therapy centre, MRI unit, pharmacy, psychiatric and general wards, lifts and a multi-story car park. I then established our consultancy working in the area of power supplies for hospitals. I also became a Director and eventually Chairman of AMOG Consulting P/L, a firm of engineers specializing in structures and hydrodynamics, particularly in Defence and the offshore oil and gas industry. I was also appointed as a part-time member of the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a position I still hold.

In the meantime our daughter has given us two wonderful grand-children, now aged 16 and 13, and in January of this year our son and his wife presented us with our newest grand-daughter.

We have had the great pleasure of travelling extensively to Europe, Asia, America, Antarctica and most recently to China. We are blessed with a lovely family and look forward to spending many more years together with them all.

Conrad Ermert
September 2008