FROM Tenterfield Boy Scout to powerful CEO, Lance Hockridge’s rise to the top echelon of Australian business has been meteoric.
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Lance Edwin Hockridge was born in Tenterfield in 1954 with his family having connections to the town going back to the late 19th century.
His grandfather was a prospector who ended up in the Tenterfield and Drake area during the mini gold rush period.
The family developed close ties to the land with one of Lance’s uncles running a sheep property in the area and another, a mixed dairy enterprise elsewhere.
“I don’t think you can live in a farming community and not learn resilience,” he told author Stephen Baines for the book Steel on Steel.
“The main things you learn are resilience, the importance of hard work and that it’s up to you to make your way in the world,” Mr Hockridge said.
Some of his earlier years in Tenterfield were spent with the Boy Scouts – a life he immersed himself into.
He received a Queen’s Scout Medal in 1971 and travelled to Japan for the World Scout Jamboree, paying his own way.
He attended Tenterfield High School until 16-years-of-age when the family relocated to Bonalbo.
His father was a carpenter by trade but took on the role of running the Bonalbo Ambulance Service.
Lance always had high hopes for himself and despite early thoughts of studying law - he opted for economics.
“The then school principal (Bonalbo Central School) taught us economics, and also had an interest for industrial relations.
“There were only six kids in the whole senior school, and the attention I got was extraordinary,” Lance said.
In the mid 1970’s, while still at the University of NSW, he found himself becoming increasingly intrigued by the highly-charged political scene in western-Sydney at the time.
He decided to nominate as an Independent in the Marrickville council elections.
Hockridge and other Independents were outspent and out-doorknocked.
“It was like looking up at the hill at this bloody great D9 (tractor) coming down at you,” he said of his short-lived battle against the Labor ‘fiefdom’.
He turned his mind to a commercial career and landed a job at BHP where he met eventual company CEO John Prescott and the pair forged a strong relationship.
After a period as head of human resources for BHP Transport, he took on the challenge of leading the transport business for four-years.
He remained with the company in some capacity for some decades before taking a presidency role with offshoot company Bluescope Steel.
He packed up and shifted to Dallas, Texas where he ran the North American operations for the company.
Mr Hockridge remained there for a few years before calling time on his tenure.
He became Managing Director and CEO of Aurizon, Australia’s largest rail freight operator, in July 2010.
On behalf of Aurizon he is a signatory of the UN’s Women Empowerment Principles which has been signed by over 960 companies worldwide and only 26 companies in Australia.
He is also the Chairman of The Salvation Army’s South Queensland Advisory Board and now resides in Brisbane with his family.
To this day he remains one of the country’s most pivotal and powerful CEO’s as the head of Aurizon.
Like most people growing up in Tenterfield in his time, Lance has a Peter Allen story.
“I knew the Saddler – I think everyone in Tenterfield did.
“And my mum’s cousin was Peter Allen. That really underlines what a close knit place it is,” he said.
