51 Years On 

Piero Peroni (above left) and Krys Smietanski were in Mr Rainbow’s 1971 Year 5 class (of 50 students).  They recently visited the Austins Ferry to view the enormous changes that have transpired since their days there.

After attending the College through to the end of Year 9, Piero moved to Ascoli Piceno in the Marche region of Italy with his family where he continued his education.  Post school he became involved in the IT industry and with a friend established a successful IT software development firm as the first IBM desktop computers went to market in the early 80s.

At the age of  25, he returned to Tasmania for a holiday.  Such was the impact of the visit, that on his return to Ascoli Piceno he sold his share of the firm to his business partner and set about resettling in Hobart for a yet undetermined period to explore again his place of birth.

He became heavily involved in IT.  Among his several roles was as General Manager TMD, Deptartment of Premier and Cabinet (DPaC). The role focussed on driving strategic direction, implementation and delivery of critical technology services across Government  from 2009 to July 2016. (More details regarding Piero’s ‘journey’ can be found in an OVAtion article, August 2018 edition.)

Krys finished at the College in 1972, and went on to do Electrical Engineering at the University of Tasmania.  Much of Krys’ professional life was with Cadbury -1996 till 2008. He spent several years in Poland where he was variously a Factory Engineering Manager,  Factory Director and Head of Production Development with the company.  From Poland he moved to Thailand where he was its Head of Engineering.

Krys moved back to Hobart in 2008 and formed his own company EnGenius Professional Services.

The Year 5 Class of 1972

Piero and Krys  are pictured. Sadly as far as we know four have passed away – Chris White, Andrew Jacobs, Dale Cleary and Mark Stanfield. The current President of OVA, David Mazengarb, was a member of this group, Dale Jordan became the Head Prefect in 1979 and he and Greg Geason (also pictured) were the Duces in their final year. Michael Lennard has a very high profile position in the United Nations in New York (ref. Aug. 2021 OVAtion) and Dominic Sharpe was added to the St Virgil’s Heritage Roll in 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in Cambodia (ref. December 2020 OVAtions).