Our People

I moved to Healesville with my husband Don in 2021 – we are definitely newbies to this wonderful town and region.

I have had over 30 years’ experience working in the public, community and private sectors in management, strategic and business planning, research and information management, policy and program development, evaluation, organisational development, and change management roles.

I had a burning desire to make a difference in the community for quite some time and helping to take positive action to mitigate the effects of climate change seemed to fit the bill. After the 2017 town meeting when Healesville Community Renewable Energy began I was very excited to hear what was being planned and immediately joined as a volunteer, along with my husband Ron.

Jeff is the founder of Healesville Community Renewable Energy and is convinced that alone there is little we can do to address the climate emergency, but when a community has leadership to bring people together, to engage with the issues, to guide and support and help find solutions, suddenly we begin to see how it is that big things can grow from small beginnings. Jeff worked tirelessly from 2017 to 2022 to establish the organisation and provide that much needed local leadership.

Rod has been a resident of the Healesville area for forty five years, and he loves the town. He and his wife, Heather are also passionate about the environment and ensuring that they leave a planet in which their children and grandchildren can thrive. This has lead to to them minimising their impact on the planet wherever they can.

I’m Julian Higgs and I am the Treasurer of Healesville CoRE and have been since 2019. My wife and I escaped the suburbs and moved to Healesville in 2006. We really didn’t know much about Healesville, it just happened to be where the block of land we liked happened to be. What good luck for us! Suffice to say the move to the Yarra Valley is one of the best decisions we ever made. We love gardening, bushwalking, bike riding and just being in the wonderful country environment that Healesville and the Yarra Valley offer.

I attended the Healesville town meeting in 2017 when Healesville Community Renewable Energy first formed and put my name down to become a volunteer. This was not long after my wife and I moved from Melbourne to live in Healesville. I had retired from my architectural practice and with a bit more time on hand it offered me the opportunity to contribute to a very interesting and important task – to donate my time to the new community we had come to live in and meet new people.