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Professor Geoffrey Opat AO (1953) (deceased) Professor Geoffrey Ivan Opat was the Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Melbourne when he died suddenly in March 2002. He had an enthusiasm for teaching physics at all levels, from kindergarten to postgraduate, and his enormously creative ideas in many different areas were the hallmarks of a remarkable career in research and in service to the physics professions and to education in Victoria, in Australia and internationally. Top The Opat family Right Geoffrey Opat Below Left Members of the Priestley family Below right Rob Priestley
Geoffrey was awarded the Dux of Brighton Grammar School in 1953. On completing his PhD at the University of Melbourne Geoffrey undertook further study and teaching in the USA before returning to the University of Melbourne. Throughout his career he held many roles here and abroad including Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Head of the School of Physics, was a member of the Physics Standing Committee of the Universities and School Examinations Board for several decades – fighting, often with a lone voice for maintaining rigorous standards. Geoffrey would look for opportunities to offer enrichment lectures and activities for students and teachers organising conferences, lecture series and so on. His breadth as a scholar was widely recognised and led to advice being sought nationally and internationally. Another passion was to invent new gadgets – some of which were more useful than others, eg: 'The rubbery ruler’ in 1995 - led to worldwide patents and an R & D 100 award. In recognition of his boundlessly creative ideas Geoffrey was invited to become a Board member of the Museum of Victoria and to chair its Research Committee. He also chaired the Research Committee of the Victorian College of the Arts. He loved the opera and was a keen ‘bathroom tenor’.
Robert Priestley (1978)
Vernon Spencer (1958)
Robert Priestley has been the Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Australia and New Zealand since 2002.
Vernon Spencer is credited with being the ‘inventor’ of mortgage broking in Australia.
After completing school Rob undertook a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Prior to joining JP Morgan in 1994 (then the Chase Manhattan Bank) Rob was a Director with Macquarie Bank’s Financial Markets Group in Sydney. He joined JP Morgan in Australia as Head of Global Financial Markets business in Australia. He has held a number of senior roles with JP Morgan around the world including Regional Head of Fixed Income and Debt across Asia Pacific, the Regional Head of International Fixed income across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as well as Head of Global Emerging Markets in that region. In addition Rob has been a Director and Council Member of the Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN) since 2006. The ABCN was created in 2004 by a group of senior business leaders (the who’s who of business in Australia) whose vision was to inspire, challenge and engage businesses to have greater positive impact in the community. The ABCN decided initially to focus on education and to provide mentoring, partnering and support programs to the students and schools who would benefit the most. Rob’s close involvement with the ABCN includes mentoring the Principal of the South Granville High School, an underprivileged school in Sydney’s west. Rob has been a driving force in engaging the staff at JPMorgan to become involved in some of the important projects that the ABCN run. Although Rob lives in Sydney and has done most of his adult life, he remains a passionate Carlton Football Club supporter.
Vernon is Executive Chairman of the Stargate Corporation Group. Stargate provides a broad range of specialist mortgage underwriting, processing, technology, and management services through its financial services, global asset management, and technologies divisions, and is a market leader in these segments of the Australian mortgage industry. Vernon’s career includes diverse experience in accounting and financial services. In 1972, he founded Stargate Corporation, which quickly became a market leader in the business of mortgage banking, loan processing, and asset management. In 1978 he was responsible for the first issue of mortgage-backed securities in Australia and the beginning of the secondary mortgage market in this country. The big switch from broker to originator came in 1992 when Vernon formed Interstar Securities, which became one of the nation’s largest non-bank wholesale loan financiers, providing housing finance through mortgage managers and mortgage brokers, and funded by the issuance of mortgage-backed securities to major institutions and investors in Australia, Europe, Asia, and USA. In 2003 Stargate’s Interstar business was acquired by Challenger Financial Services, a listed major diversified financial services group. Vernon has always been prepared to ‘walk the talk’ – he is so committed to ensuring there will always be funds available to make sure there are surf life savers at Portsea, he has been Trustee of the Portsea Surf Lifesaving Foundation since it started in 1959 more than 50 years ago. Vernon has been a Trustee of the Burnet Institute's Sir Zelman Cowen Foundation for Medical Research and Public Health since its inception in 2003.