Joanne’s new career path melds 21 years of experience

Fraser Coast Chronicle; Maryborough, Qld., Mar 8, 2010

Joanne Lambden is living proof that the post baby boomers are changing their careers more than once in a lifetime and loving it.

Joanne started her career with a degree in science, majoring in ornamental horticulture. Her first job was with a major Australian plant nursery in Victoria, but soon realised her real passion was for design.

For the next seven years she worked with engineers, architects and recreation planners designing and managing landscape and recreation projects for a council in the Melbourne suburb of Lilydale.

“Cutting your teeth in a design office is actually excellent preparation for management – you need to quickly get a handle on estimating budgets and thinking through how a concept will work from beginning through to end use,” says Joanne who used her first career as a stepping stone to her third change – parks and recreation manager for the former Hervey Bay City Council and later the Fraser Coast council where she spent 14 years.

But Joanne is now enjoying her fourth major career change to start her own company in mid 2008.

“Joanne Lambden and Associates is the name of my company and the work I do, sometimes alone, other times with associates, involves the sum total of all the experiences of the first 21 years of my career.”