Teacher tackles main event
In a world that places high value on a university degree, changing careers can seem almost impossible.
Who wants to spend three years at university, five or so years working and then another few years studying in order to change jobs?
However, the skills of some jobs are so broad they can be ideal for a range of other careers.
Teaching is one of the best. You can find former teachers in a multitude of careers -and Dallas O'Brien is a good example.
After spending 10 years teaching at primary and secondary schools, he moved into event and sports management with International Management Group, a sports, entertainment and media company.
O'Brien heads the Australian/New Zealand athletics and fitness division.
IMG is organising the Melbourne Marathon, which ends at the MCG on October 7.
"My role covers all things athletics. Triathlon, cycling and even surfing comes under my guidance," he says.
O'Brien started as a primary-schoolteacher before becoming a secondary-school phys-ed teacher.
He was also a successful runner, winning the 1983 Stawell Gift.
Teaching provided him with a good living and extra time to spend training as a runner, but he felt it was time for a career change when he started winding down his running.
"I had been married for a few years and had my first kid," he says.
"I was also looking for a challenge. I wanted to do something more exciting and, like a lot of Australians, I was keen to be involved in sport in some way."
Sports and event management seemed a logical progression, and often a career change can come down to who you know, not what you know.
"I got into IMG through golf. A friend was a tournament director working on the Australian Open and the Mastercard Masters," he says.
He started working during holidays and at Christmas as an assistant event manager and became the event manager the next season.
"Then I fell into a position that became available and ended up becoming the tournament director for the Open and Masters.
"I did not have much experience, but event managing, especially for sport, has a similar set of skills to PE teaching. It is just managing big kids with more money rather than little kids."
O'Brien says teaching can prepare people for many other careers.
"Obviously the organisational, time and people-management skills you learn as a teacher are transferable," he says. "Also, you need an understanding of the variety of people and their different abilities. As a teacher you have to be hugely aware of that.
"That is one of the main things I took out of teaching - being a people person. I did carry that over into event management."
His advice to anyone thinking of a career in event or sports management is simple: it is almost all about hard work, not the glory.
"One of the most important things is to treat it like a business. Five to eight years ago, students who came out of university would arrive with stars in their eyes. They all wanted to manage Greg Norman and they thought they could do it in five minutes.
"They have to realise they need strong business skills and they have to be very competent office workers.
"Back-of-house office work is what it is about.
"The glory stuff, like dealing with athletes at an event, is the cream on the cake, but 90 per cent of it is hard yakka behind the scenes."
O'Brien's first job at IMG is an example.
"Even after 10 years of teaching, my first job was at Kingston Heath golf course. It was the Australian Open and we had to rope the course with a huge bundle of rope. It was completely tangled and I had to untangle it," he says.
"You have to start at the bottom and work your way up."
IT'S NOT ALL PERKS
International Management Group's Dallas O'Brien says working in sports management can be great, but it's also a lot of work.
"It can be long hours, but it is stuff you can take in your stride if you enjoy what you are doing. And you know what the end result is.
"I have always had the philosophy around teamwork: it is important to give people ownership of certain areas.
"There are a lot of uni courses in sports management now, and I think most of them are directed the right way: doing sports management with a business degree alongside it.
"It is a very popular course, but the perception in the past has been that it was all fun and mixing with superstars.
"And there is a bit of that. IMG is recognised as the most powerful in the world, and I have had beers with Greg Norman and Tiger Woods.
"There are some really nice perks, but if they are all you're in it for, you won't last very long," O'Brien says.
The Herald Sun, September 1st, 2007
