Vale, Lorraine Bridger

RMIT Building 1 (left) where we first worked together – via Wikimedia Commons. Lorraine Bridger passed away recently. Most people won’t know who she is but Lorraine was special to me. She got me started as research administrator. I’m going to miss her. In 1990, Lorraine employed me to work at the Research Coordination Office at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. I had one year of experience working at the precursor to the Australian Research Council, backed up by a mediocre Arts degree. She gave me a chance. It is hard to imagine how different things were back then. The entire central research office was six people, from the Dean of Research down to me. In my desk, I found the minutes of the first Research Committee meeting. They were written by the inimitable Hein Wagenfeld. He noted that the committee met off campus, as research was not an activity that was recognised by the Institute at that time. It was dated only two or three years before I arrived. My main role was to…