Philippe reflects on incredible career at South Gippsland Water

AFTER more than a decade as managing director at South Gippsland Water, Philippe du Plessis is stepping down from his role as he looks to new beginnings.

Philippe, who resides at Inverloch, has been with the organisation for 21 years starting out as the chief financial officer.

“My family moved to the area and the opportunity came up, so I took it,” he said.

“We weren’t sure how long we would stay but we ended up loving the area.

“I took on the managing director role in 2011 and have enjoyed connecting to the community.”

After much thought and consideration, Philippe said he made the decision to retire from the role partly due to the incredible demand the pandemic had on the company.

“COVID has taken a lot out of people, but it certainly impacted me in many respects,” he said.

“Initially we were concerned for staff safety; but how did we communicate to all of the business to give them information and allow them to ask questions.

“There was a lot (to manage) around logistics and trying to keep staff safe while still do our job.

“We saw ourselves as an essential service, but we had to do it in a way that’s safe.”

During his time, Philippe also guided the organisation through the final years of the millennium drought.

“2006-07 was the height of it, you had water storages going to less than 10 per cent of their supply and that was even when we were accessing water from other sources,” he said.

“There was a fairly innovative solution with what was previously a wastewater pipe that was used for dairy waste from Korumburra to Leongatha.

“What we did was suspended its use from that, reserve the flow and took water from the Tarwin River to supplement those communities.

“If we hadn’t of done that, we probably would have run out of water in those regions.”

Philippe said another major project he oversaw was the almost $40m implementation of a link to Melbourne Water via Lance Creek.

Overall, Philippe has relished his time in the company, enjoying the connection he’s made with staff while providing an essential service for the community now and into the future.