Great Scot April 2019 Great Scot_156_April_2019_Online | Page 89

LEFT TO RIGHT: DOUG SOWDEN (’67), JOHN MACKENZIE (’68), MURRAY SCOTT (’74), MICHAEL HAPPELL (’77), SCOTT HODDINOTT (’78)
greatest player’. He also keeps fit with other
training including hard yoga, which he has
enjoyed for more than 40 years; and for 20 years
he has participated in weekly training with a
men’s fitness group. ‘It all started out with the
“Fitness for Life” government push of the early
1970s which is now in its 49th year,’ Doug says.
He has never married, and says he thoroughly
enjoys the bachelor life. Doug has now been
retired for four years. ‘I enjoyed my work over
the years (fortunately for me),’ he says, ‘but I like
retirement even more!’
JOHN MACKENZIE’S (‘68) medical career
has been in rural general practice. Semi-retired,
he continues to do locum work in remote
communities, and as an instructor in rural
emergency medicine. In 2019, he is participating
in a project funded by the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, in which six Australian doctors
are helping the advanced training of Tongan
doctors in a new post-graduate family medicine
program.
He described his wedding to Pam at Scotch
in 1974 as ‘my life’s greatest achievement,
followed by our two sons and grandchildren’.
John now has more time to spend with Pam, the
grandchildren, travelling, and playing golf, and
if time ever allows, he hopes to write a book of
extraordinary stories involving his past patients.
1970s
PROFESSOR MURRAY SCOTT (‘74)
is the 2019 winner of the Royal Aeronautical
Society, Australian Division’s, biennial Lawrence
Hargrave Award, for making a ‘significant
contribution to Australian aviation’. Murray
received his award during the 18th Australian
International Aerospace Congress in Melbourne
on 25 February. The award honours Lawrence
Hargrave (1850-1915), an Australian engineer,
explorer, astronomer, inventor and aeronautical
pioneer. Hargrave’s experiments with box kites
in the 1890s proved to be one of the most
significant early developments in aviation.
Murray has made an outstanding
contribution to the design and manufacturing of
advanced fibre-composite aerospace structures,
primarily as CEO of the Cooperative Research
Centre for Advanced Composite Structures. The
CRC underpinned the design and production of
advanced composite structures for the Boeing
787 wings – a notable highlight for Australia’s
aerospace manufacturing capability. Murray is
an Honorary Fellow of the International Council
of the Aeronautical Sciences and a World Fellow
of the International Committee on Composite
Materials, and he is the only Australian to have
served as President of either organisation.
MICHAEL HAPPELL (‘77) has been elected
as the 28th President of the Melbourne Cricket
Club, succeeding Steven Smith in the top role
of one of the nation’s premier sports clubs.
Michael, who has been an MCC member for
almost 40 years, was formerly Vice President
and before that Treasurer of the MCC, and has
served on the club’s committee since 2011. He
is also Chairman of the MCG’s National Sports
Museum. In business life, Michael is the former
Chair of PwC Australia and was a member of
PwC’s Global Board.
Michael is an excellent sportsman. He has
won many Australian and international Real
Tennis titles; he captained the Australian Real
Tennis team for 20 years, and is the current
world champion in the sport’s over 55 age
category. He also played 1st XI cricket for
Melbourne University in the Victorian Premier
Cricket competition and is a keen golfer. Michael
and his wife Tatty have three daughters.
SCOTT HODDINOTT (’78) followed his
father into real estate after leaving school. He
first worked in St Kilda, before moving to live
with his father in Sydney at Castle Cove, and
again working in real estate. Now, after almost
40 years in the business, the thought of an early
retirement is certainly appealing, especially with
a little prompting from his partner, Roslyn (‘of 15
years and still not married — one day?’ Scott
says). Scott has one daughter from a previous
marriage, Eliza, born in 1995, who is the other
love of his life. After his father’s death in 2002,
Scott moved back into the family home, where
he and Roslyn now live.
The Hoddinotts have a great Scotch
tradition, with family members having attended
the School since the early days, beginning with
Scott’s great-grandfather, JOSEPH, who was at
Scotch, East Melbourne, in 1860-61.
1980s
ROSS MOLLISON’S (‘81) theatrical
production company, Spiegelworld, is the
producer of the successful circus variety show,
Absinthe, which has played at Caesar’s Palace
in Las Vegas for nearly eight years, and a new
show, Opium, which opened in 2018 at The
Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Ross is living in
Brooklyn with partner Gillian and seven-year-old
son, Harvey. He still travels regularly to Australia
to see his mother Valerie. In August 2019
Ross will launch a brand new production at
the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which will then
transfer to the USA to become Ross’s third
resident show in Las Vegas.
www.scotch.vic.edu.au Great Scot
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