Former Telstra Business Award winner and long-time MYOB trainer Rob Marshall, director of Western Australia-based Ebiz Solutions, journeyed to eastern Papua New Guinea last year with his brother, Don. Theirs was an unusual accounting assignment: teach MYOB to 14 PNG students in the country’s second-largest city, Lae.
Lae is today a tropical city of 73,000 people, a trade centre for the PNG highlands and the site of PNG’s second university. Seventy years ago, it was a war zone, taken by the Japanese as a major base. It fell to the Australians in September 1943, only after several weeks of fierce fighting. The bodies of more than 2,800 soldiers now lie in the Lae War Cemetery. Among them are members of the 2/2nd Independent Commando Unit, of which Rob and Don’s father, Arthur, was a member.
Rob takes up the story:
“Upon arrival at Lae Airport, we were in for culture shock. We were ushered out of the airport under strict security and departed the airport on a road that would be classed as a B-grade country bush track in Australia, with potholes that were deep enough to fall into and not come back out. After 30 minutes on rough terrain, we arrived well into the night at our base compound in a town called Eleven Mile.
The compound was surrounded by barbed wire, with guards and dogs on patrol 24/7. I said to Don: ‘What have we gotten ourselves into here?’
The first class began at 8.30am. The students were some of the most beautiful people l have ever met on this planet. They were polite, respectful, attentive and full of enthusiasm to learn. Some of them completely blew me away with their knowledge of MYOB, and yet they all worked extremely hard to extend their skills in the time that Don and l had with them. After six days of comprehensive training, most of them had considerably improved their knowledge of MYOB – the accounting program of choice among businesses on the island.
This is where kudos needs to go to Agility and Exxon for making this training available.
The trip ended on a ‘spiritual’ note for us and completed one of the most life-changing journeys of our lives. We visited the Lae War Memorial, the resting place for a number of Aussie soldiers who died during World War II. Our father, Arthur, fought in the jungles of Timor and New Guinea as part of what is now known as the SAS. He fought behind enemy lines in the very jungles around Lae where Don and I taught MYOB. At age 90, dad is one of the few remaining members of the 2/2nd Commandoes still alive. At the War Memorial, Don and I were able to locate the graves of a number of dad’s mates who didn’t make it home.”
