“The time has come” the Walrus said… to speak the other “R” word… Retirement.

It is now 61 years and some months since I first entered paid employment as a junior clerk with the Queensland Department of Local Government. After 15 years of learning, developing and exercising professional skills focused on local government, a sector of the Australian government framework which I came to love deeply, I began my second career as a local government manager with Logan City Council. After another 25 years as that Council’s CEO, I sought to reinvent myself again by establishing my consultancy to serve the wider world of local government. In doing so for the past 20+ years, I have had the privilege of working with and helping local councils in various parts of Australia, albeit with a particular focus on Queensland, where I can number more than half the state’s local governments in my client list.

I can look back on each of these careers with great satisfaction and with many fond memories of the individuals and teams with whom I have worked, to achieve gratifying, and in some cases notable, outcomes for organisations and communities. Thankfully, fulfilling achievemnts were many and disappointments have been few. I am therefore enormously grateful to all those colleagues, supporters and mentors who guided my steps and provided encouragement along the way.

I must mention my particular gratitude to my long-time business associate in Reinforcements Management Consulting, Graham Webb, who recently retired to a more sedate seaside existence.

As I now turn to a more reflective phase of my life, I look forward to finding new directions of focusing my personal energies, while still maintaining a professional interest in those areas that have been so long a part of my psyche. I will continue to communicate with my professional networks to maintain that valuable connection and relevance to my former careers.

From the end of June 2026 my Reinforcements website will be closed and although I will not be actively seeking out new business, I will continue for a little while to support some existing clients with whom I have had ongoing service relationships in recent years.

Best wishes also to all my Linked-in friends and contacts and my thanks for your informative, entertaining and inspirational posts over so many years.

Gary Kellar