Rocket man rides the IT wave

Spicer earned his Bachelor of Engineering degree (mechanical) from the Queensland Institute of Technology in 1984. “I don’t have actual IT qualifications, however my mechanical engineering degree did have IT components,” he says.

“My degree was more mechanical engineering with IT components. I did use FORTRAN—one big early programming languages of late 70s and 80s. All my IT knowledge has been learnt on the job.”

Straight after University, Spicer went on to work at a start-up company called Qutec Pty Ltd. The QLD-based company developed components of a computer controlled machine for the export market. While he was there, the company was awarded with the US patent for the product.

“My first job with Qutec gave me a lot of exposure to technology. I was able to work on computer controlled machine tools and this was back in 1985,” he says.

He left the company in 1983 to pursue a career in the Aerospace field. Spicer accepted a position with the Defence Science & Technology Organisation Aeronautical Research Laboratories in 1988 where he helped to develop technology for the NULKA Active Decoy system, technology that protects naval ships from the threat of anti-ship missiles.

“Working for Aerospace was quiet interesting, it was where they use to do the first Australian rocket launches back in the 60s,” says Spicer.

“I helped to work on NULKA. Defence personnel could launch it [the decoy] into the air, which seeks out ships and hovers above them like sign stating “here’s the ship’.”

The whole experience, which lasted a year, was “pretty interesting” for Spicer. He enjoyed working in the aeronautical field so much he applied and received an offer from British Aerospace in London.

“British Aerospace offered me a position but I turned it don’t because they wanted me to five years in London, I just couldn’t do that,” he says.

Spicer rethought his career path and returned to school. He earned qualifications the Australian Graduate School of Management with an MBA Corporate Strategy Medal.

He moved onto McKinsey & Company, in 1992 as an engagement manager. He served clients in banking, insurance, resources, steel, building products. His responsibilities included strategy, performance improvement, and organisation design and change management.

In 1995, he returned to Brisbane to work continuously in the financial services industry, starting at Ernst & young as an executive consultant.

Spicer helped the organisation relaunch its Queensland practice with a focus on strategy and re-engineering. He also served clients in local government, financial services and telecommunications.

After a year at Ernst & Young, he moved onto Suncorp Metway in 1996. He was hired as Suncorp’s general manager strategy and marketing and his responsibilities included group strategy, marketing and investor relations.

Spicer helped to architect the merger between Suncorp and Metway. He also developed the banking system as part of the integration strategy and championed a $180 million re-engineering program.

“After joining Suncorp Metway, I did a lot of work working with the IT team, (which was headed up by a lady, who know looks after the IT department at the National Bank),” says Spicer.

“I put the through a marketing and customer information system to track customers across the different divisions. I also implemented the first online banking system and a trading system back in 1996/1997.

“Most of my technology training came about because of there was a lot of technology being used by financial services, it was and still is driven by it.”

According to Spicer, Suncorp was using a lot of enterprise systems. His first taste of the Internet was also through his position at Suncorp.

“I first got on Web in 1994/1995 and I thought it was amazing back then even with the old dial-up modems continually dropping out. The photos would download an inch at a time,” he says.

“This was the first phase of the web as we know it today. Even back in the early 90’s the potential for the technology came through. Looking back at it now it was really an exciting time.”