The Bob Gawne Young Achiever Award, named in honour of long-serving Melbourne Business Award supporter and youth mentor Bob Gawne, aims to identify and promote young people who are making a significant contribution to the company where they are employed.

The recipient of this award for 2019 is Marian O’Leary.

Award Criteria

Nominations are open to any employee 30 years or younger who:

• is working in the South East Region of Melbourne
• is able to demonstrate outstanding achievement in their respective field
• has clear aspirations, and an outstanding attitude to their work and fellow employees
• has made a significant contribution to the company which they are employed at

Phillip Rolls, Managing Director at RollsPack congratulated Marian on behalf of the company, saying “I wish to congratulate Marian on behalf of all of us at RollsPack, on winning this prestigious ‘Young Achiever Award’ at the MBA final Breakfast this morning.”

“Marian has been with us for nearly 2 years and has proved to be a critical part of our Quality Assurance and production quality controls, both for our locally made goods and overseas made products. “

“We have sponsored Marian in completing her Diploma in Food Packaging through the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), which will provide her with an in-depth understanding of packaging process and materials for the future, which will be a period of fabulous experiences in this new digital and era of technological change.”

Marian’s ethos

Marian’s career aspirations are to play an active part in the development and implementation of sustainable packaging, particularly in the food packaging industry. This would involve changing over from current plastic structures that most often cannot be recycled to ones that are made from recyclable raw materials and provide the same barrier functions and attributes. Studying for her Diploma together with industry experience she is exposed to will provide a strong foundation that she can build on to help develop environmentally friendly packaging that is also financially sound.

Marian’s Contribution

The most significant contribution Marian has made to RollsPack is leading the company on the way to obtaining a food-grade certification (FSSC 22000). This is an international food safety standard that would increase the visibility of our food safety practices, as well as accountability for our internal processes to ensure we are producing consistently good quality and food-safe packaging.

Preparing for this certification has involved working with the production team to establish and improve internal quality auditing systems, rewriting the hazard analysis plans for the site (leading to improved visibility and control of food safety risks and vulnerabilities), the introduction of a cleaning regime for the manufacturing floor and introduction of approved contractor programs.

Congratulations Marian, we are very proud of you.