Base

Garry is a qualified town planner.

From 1981, his local government career evolved from a Development Assessment Planner to Senior Strategic Planner and finally to Development Services Manager on the NSW Central Coast. 

 In 1994, this was followed by a role as Director and part-owner of a multi-disciplinary firm of architects, planners, landscape architects and ecologists providing an integrated approach to land development.

From 2009 to 2015, he was Principal Planner and sole practitioner for his planning consultancy.

Since July 2012, due to his community involvement with the Hunter Wine Country Tourism Board, Garry has researched the regulation of events with Emeritus Professor Kevin Lyons from the University of Newcastle School of Business.

In 2020, Garry was a founding member of the Australian Regional Events Alliance (AREA). AREA was created as a common national voice representing events across regional Australia. AREA aims to highlight the importance of events, both socially and economically, to collate stories of various regulations and to advocate for regulatory consistency.

Since 2021, he has undertaken pro-bono assistance to organisations to improve NSW’s event planning and regulation processes.

 In 2022, Garry presented some of his findings on local government approaches to festival regulation in NSW to the Australian Festival Industry Conference Gold Coast.