We heard from our returning member Jane Paterson and new member Rod Badcock.
Jane Paterson joined the Club in 2007 and recently returned after a two-year break as she was Women's Club Captain for the Royal Wellington Golf Club. Twice widowed Jane was originally from Gisborne, she built a remarkable career after a physical education degree led her to teaching — a vocation she embraced wholeheartedly for 18 years at Marsden School, where she rose to Head of Department for Sport and Dean of Student Services. Life took Jane from Dunedin to Auckland, Wellington, and Washington DC, where her first husband was posted to the NZ Embassy, and she navigated teaching, a growing family, and eventually twins along the way.
After leaving teaching, Jane moved into agricultural industry training, developing qualifications and learning resources before joining the commercial arm of an agricultural ITO. This took her to China, where she worked with Fonterra developing standard operating procedures and training trainers — famously using a rugby scrum as a teaching tool — and to Chile, where she supported subsistence sheep farmers. It was during this chapter that she met her second husband, Ian. Jane's parting wisdom for the Club: take every opportunity that comes your way.
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Rod Badcock is a newcomer to the Club and brings with him a truly eclectic CV — BSc, MSc, PhD, over 300 academic publications, and an enduring obsession with bicycles. Growing up in Cambridge (UK), Rod was a self-described mix of "a bit rough and a wide boy" at school, though he channelled his energy productively — organising financially successful parties and trading up old motorbikes. He studied physics at Leeds, competed as a backstroke finalist in the UK national swimming championships, then completed a master's at Brunel and a PhD spanning engineering, materials, and physics.
Rod went on to establish one of the many companies he has founded, a materials evaluation consultancy, work at the Royal Aerospace Establishment, and help build a fibre optics prototype development company that attracted venture capital — before the dot-com crash brought him back to earth. A senior lectureship followed. In 2006, a chance flyer about policy work (for Jade) in New Zealand brought Rod and his wife Jade to Aotearoa, where he was quickly headhunted and eventually ended up working on superconductors at IRL, travelling the world and earning a Cooper Medal in 2007. Rod is proud of helping others reach their potential — he has supervised many masters and PhD students who have gone on to careers around the globe —and growing businesses such as Open Star Technology. He's still racing around on his mountain bike, even if the BMX racing days are behind him thanks to a new pair of knees.