Chris Ryan (Australian politician)

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Chris Ryan is a New South Wales Australian Labor Party political candidate in the Electoral district of Albury.

Contents 1 Personal life 2 Early life 3 Australia 4 Albury-Wodonga 5 Community 6 Current 2007

[edit] Personal life

Chris Ryan has been married to wife Juliana since 1971. They have seven children; Liam, Margaret, Juliana, Felicity, Rosemary, Teresa and Catherine and fourteen grandchildren.

[edit] Early life

Christopher Ryan was born in Bury on the 20 July 1949, the first of five children to George and Margaret Ryan (nee Dowd of County Kerry, Ireland) of Heywood Lancashire, England. He had a happy childhood attending St, Joseph’s RC School from Infants through High, and spending the long summer vocations on the farm at his mother’s home place in County Kerry.

In 1965 he started his apprenticeship at Leesona (textile machine manufactures) where after his first 12 months in the apprentice training school, he underwent modular training for the next two years in all production departments. His fourth year was spent in experimental and engineering design and his fifth year in industrial engineering. During his five years of training he attended first Rochdale then Bury College, one day and two nights per week where he took his Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes and City and Guilds Of the London Institute exams.

In 1970 Chris applied to join VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) was accepted and sent to the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati). Seconded to District Office he built schools, council offices and Rest Houses on Butaritari and Maraki, Chris also designed the local industries workshop for the island of Tabitawaa and government housing for district office employees on Tarawa. It was on Tarawa that Chris met and married his wife and partner ever since Juliana. On completion of his voluntary service W.R.E.N. Smith District Commissioner for the Gilberts offered Chris the position of District Office Building Project Officer for the Gilbert Islands. Chris however, decided to come to Australia.

[edit] Australia

Chris arrived in Australia in 1972 with $200 in his wallet, he quickly got a job as a Methods Analyst at Yakka, costing new products and setting direct labour standards for existing products, using modapts and master standard data, it was not long before he became the methods departments’ representative to the production planning group.

It was about this time Chris and Juliana lost their second child Paul at only a few hours old, although Juliana quickly became pregnant again, Chris decided he would like a change and successfully applied for the position as Project Engineer with Holeproof. On handing in his notice to Yakka, one of the directors Brian Laidlaw called him into the office and said, 'look we are going to be starting a new project with H. D. Lee in Albury-Wodonga I need an Industrial Engineer', and asked Chris to take a look. He flew Chris up the next day and Chris decided to take the position.

[edit] Albury-Wodonga

In 1973 Chris went to Albury where he has lived ever since and started work at H. D. Lee in the pilot plant being set up to train operators in Kiewa St., while the new factory was being built in Wodonga.

Chris set up the new factory to produce jeans at less than two thirds of the direct labour hours of the existing Yakka factories which at that time where considered amongst the most efficient in Australia.

It was during his time at H.D. Lee that Chris met Dudley Cook a retired industrial engineer from the USA who introduced him to what was then the American Institute of Industrial Engineers, a valuable resource, but more importantly to his own practices, principles and ethics in regards to industrial engineering.

"Measure anything that moves and never be afraid to experiment. Plan, formulate and try new methods, never let ego mare judgment. Gain the trust of the workers by being honest and never break a confidence. ... if a worker comes up to you and says, ‘we are going on strike tomorrow,’ you can ask why, you can offer to take the grievance to management, but if the worker says no, that’s it, management will find out when it happens, your job is to produce and install the best methods and secure everyone’s future and for that you need trust."

In 1976 Chris joined Sanyo as a supervisor to assist in setting up a new cabinet manufacturing facility. He along with the manager and an associate were sent to Japan for two months to look at methods of manufacture and to inspect the machines prior to shipment to Australia. On returning to Australia they set up the factory to produced TV cabinet wraps at approximately fifty percent of the direct labour hours of their Japanese counterparts.

From 1978 to 2004 over twenty-five years Chris was employed at what was originally Borg Warner and is now DSI in the industrial engineering department.

Over twenty-five years,his responsibilities included; setting direct labour standards, line balancing, labour forecasting, and plant layout, evaluating new and proposed methods, cost estimating for new projects and setting up computer programs to assist in all the above.

During his time at DSI Chris had twelve years as a union delegate, was part of the negotiation team in four Enterprise Bargaining Agreements and besides delegate training, underwent training in conflict resolution, industrial relations and occupational health and safety.

[edit] Community

In his early years in Albury Chris was involved in the St. Vincent de Paul Society but as his family grew he became involved both as a coach at club and local representative level and committee member to several sports including, athletics, soccer, netball and tennis. Chris has served many terms on St. Patrick’s parish council, is a founder member, past president and secretary of his union’s district committee in which he is still involved, was district organiser in the 'Euthanasia No Campaign' against euthanasia, has been a member of and is the president of the Albury branch of the Australian Labor Party.

[edit] Current 2007

Chris is a senior member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (USA), belongs to affiliated societies, Society for Engineering & Management Systems (SEMS) and Society for Health Systems (SHS) and twenty one divisions ranging from ergonomics to aerospace and defence. Chris owns his own consultancy company 'Point by Point Pty Ltd.', producing industrial engineering solutions, and is the current Labor candidate for the State Seat of Albury.