Bill Stewart's friendly customer service and wealth of knowledge will be sorely missed when he retires after five decades in the gas industry later this month.
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After a four-week boat journey from Ireland to Australia with his mother in 1966, Mr Stewart started his career in the industry as a 16-year-old apprentice in Mount Gambier.
He moved to Horsham in 1977 to work for Gas and Fuel, and later ran own business 'Horsham Gas Services', before amalgamating with Wades around 1990.
Through his work as a gas technician, Mr Stewart has accumulated a crew of loyal and satisfied customers across his 50-year career, relationships he said he would miss in retirement.
"You meet a lot of nice people along the way," he said.
"I'm a people person. I love to deal with customers and, as it happens, I've had a lot of loyal older customers. I've been looking after their gas appliances for 20 to 30 years.
"I think most of my good customer relationships come from just listening and talking. That's what a lot of them are after, someone to have a chat to.
"I had one elderly customer, she found out when my wedding anniversary was, and every year she used to get her heater serviced the month before our anniversary, and she would always bake us a fruitcake.
"She was just a special person - and there were a lot of those really nice people around."
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Mr Stewart said more golf, home renovations, grandchildren, and eventually some trips around Australia would keep him occupied in retirement.
Mr Stewart said among his most memorable moments of the last five decades was the introduction of natural gas to Horsham.
He said in the process, a sensor tool called a "pig" got stuck in the pipeline, leaving Horsham without gas for more than a week.
"It was a pretty crazy week," he said.
"Hotels and places started converting back to cylinder gas.
"Once they finally found it and got it out, we had to purge all the gas mains out and go around to all the houses to relight the pilots again. That was a fairly major week for Horsham."
Wades' managing director Adam Jolley first started working alongside Mr Stewart in 1998.
He said Mr Stewart had always been a wealth of knowledge.
"He's probably been the best in the district for a long time, for his knowledge and his expertise. He's always been the go-to man," Mr Jolley said.
"He was with Wades when I first started and he was always there for me from day one.
"He taught me a lot ... and he's been a long-standing friend. He'll be sorely missed."
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Richard Crabtree
richard.crabtree@austcommunitymedia.com.au
richard.crabtree@austcommunitymedia.com.au
