Jim Truscott OAM is a civil engineer, climber and crisis practitioner. Throughout his 40-year career in strategic and operational environments he has held central leadership roles within multi-disciplinary teams over a diverse range of high-risk enterprises. He founded Truscott Crisis Leaders after the Sydney Olympics in 2000 growing it into international resilience consultancy now operating from 9 countries with clients in 44 countries. Prior to becoming a consultant Jim was the Operations Officer in the Special Air Service Regiment where he controlled very-short notice activities to protect Australia’s international interests.Jim had a lot to tell us, and fortunately he dealt with this by sending two reports, which were circulated to all members on Monday. They are well written and worth reading.
Jim has also published three books:
- Dancing With The Tiger: The Art of Business Crisis Leadership (2012)
- The Art of Crisis Leadership: Incident Management in the Digital Age (2015)
- Snakes in the Jungle - Special Operations in War & Business (Zeus Publications, 2015)
Jim says Snakes in the Jungle contains the memoirs of a special operative in war and business. Operations in war time are all about crisis management. It is akin to a sales manual for merchant adventurers at the juxtaposition of military and economic warfare. Written in the same vein as ‘Sun Tzu Was a Sissy, The Real Art of War’ by Stanley Bing, it will be enjoyed by readers interested in autobiography, SAS, war, adventure and business. People like reading about human foibles in barracks and boardrooms. The first part is historical and biographical and the second part is philosophical. There are few books written by former SAS officers on history, war, adventure, family and business.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition the snake is an evil idea, a sneak, a liar, one hundred percent bad but in China a Taipan is literally top class or big shot used for a senior business executive or entrepreneur. In my case Taipan was my clandestine guerrilla warfare name. Up until now few people knew this.
“When I first started writing about 15 years ago the memoirs were called Feral Major. The Military Secretary called me this when I was exiled in the Pilbara, and he wanted to know whether I still wore shoes to work. After some introspection I changed the title to Pushing the Boundaries based upon my ability to extend the rule books. Then for a long while it was called Instinct for Dissent, largely due to my ability to disobey lawful commands and survive the prospects of courts martials. Then came a light bulb moment, while prospering after 15 years in the bastardry of business and Screw-You University! “
Rotary in East Timor
Rotary Clubs have sponsored hundreds of projects in East Timor and in Jim’s opinion, one that has been very successful is East Timor Roofing
East Timor Roofing was established as a Rotary project in mid 2000 by Rotary Clubs of Doncaster 45%, Melbourne 45% and Lilydale 10%. The intent then and now is to provide training and opportunities for the people of Timor Leste to help them help themselves to greater sustainability as a nation and as a people.
From a start of “zero base” the operation is now a fully established incorporated limited liability Company in Timor Leste.
The project was allocated an old market site in Baucau by the original United Nations Administration and now has a large fully equipped factory on the site with machinery to roll flat steel coils into corrugated roofing iron, purlin section, wall frame stud and track, and guttering. Other roofing products manufactured are pre-fabricated roof trusses, as well as water tanks and more recently grain silos.
The factory has been expanded substantially since inception and has recently installed a new purlin rolling mill to produce lighter roof and wall frame sections to complement the existing product range and equipment.
East Timor Roofing has an East Timorese manager resident manager with the overall management of the operation overseen by a Board of Rotarians in Melbourne. All other staff are local East Timorese people trained in the various facets of factory operation and they are supported by an Australian experienced building expert.
Shortly the operation will be transferred to Dom Bosco who will continue to operate the facility for the benefit of the East Timorese communities.
The factory operates on a commercial basis but all surplus funds generated by the organization remain in Timor Leste for maintenance and expansion of the facility as well as supporting a variety of humanitarian projects identified from time to time.(Background stories provided by Jim can be found in Download Files in right hand column)
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