13 August 1952 – 16 July 2019
Greg Collette set up and registered the ASTC in Victoria on 6 October 1987. The ASTC (N
SW) did not arrive until 21 August 1992. His softly spoken but determined approach helped people see the importance of their technical communications work. Greg personally funded a competition to kick-start the society. It attracted some high-profile independent judges including Helen Meredith, then Computing and High Technology Editor for The Australian.
Greg has lived with serious kidney disease, having been on dialysis since 1995, with brief breaks for two short-lived transplants. Greg was an inveterate blogger. He was always willing to share his experiences with others living with kidney disease. He created a successful Travel Dialysis Review website and blog, and his BigDandMe blog for people on dialysis has about 10,000 regular monthly visitors from 166 countries. He ran Wordware for 23 years. A serial entrepreneur, he also set up:
SmoothHospitalMove which specialises in hospital transitions – moving or relocating the staff and clinical, non-clinical, technical and support services of entire hospitals, while remaining operational throughout.
gstepone – a cloud computing product based on a free version of his enterprise BPM/KM tool, WorkScript.
SportsConnect.net – where he was Managing Director and Operations Manager for more than 10 years.
Nu Energy – where he managed the national installation of Solar PV systems for Origin Energy.
Greg designed the first Dialysis Early Warning application for patients and clinicians that:
provides a day-by-day update of a patient’s condition
gives early warning of potential problems
provides knowledge and confidence to enable the patient to take pre-emptive action that helps maintain their health and wellbeing.
The application is now used by patients and clinicians in Australia, South America, the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe.
With his blog and patient advocacy role increasing, Greg regularly spoke at health conferences as a patient representative. His paper – Could Your Fistula Rupture? – received the 2016 Renal Society of Australasia conference Best Paper Award. He was also awarded best speaker at the Diaverum 2016 Global Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
It is understandable that Greg was unable to continue his involvement with the ASTC. Surviving the recession and then dealing with health issues took him in a different direction.
We can't help but admire all the contributions he has made throughout his career and be thankful that he had the prescience to get the ASTC started. Greg left behind his widow Julie, children Mark, Liam, Katherine and their families.
Rob Napier