Sayres Australia a proud sponsor of 2022 Aussie Hero Quilts Dinner

On Saturday 29 October 2022, representatives from Sayres Australia attended the Aussie Hero Quilts Annual Dinner.

The dinner was part of the Aussie Hero Quilts Thank-You Weekend, dedicated to those quilters who volunteer their time, material, and talent to make quilts and laundry bags for our men and women in the Australian Defence force who are serving overseas, and to those who are suffering an illness or injury. 

2021 marked the 10th Anniversary of Aussie Hero Quilts.  Unfortunately, the dinner could not be held last year due to COVID-19, so the 10th anniversary of the organisation was celebrated this year. 

Sayres Australia was proud to sponsor an auction prize, a voucher for $1,200.00 to spend at Rodger Bartholomew, Canberra’s premium men’s outfitters. 

Sayres Australia was pleased to be able to provide some support to Aussie Hero Quilts at this event.  Aussie Hero Quilts provides Australia’s overseas serving personnel with tangible symbols of the nation’s acknowledgement of the sacrifices they make to protect Australia and its national interests while being deployed overseas. 

Sayres Australia Supports Soldier On

Sayres Australia, a veteran owned and run business, is proud to announce that we have signed The Soldier On Pledge and have been recognised as a Bronze level Pledge Partner.

CEO, Craig Powell, and Director of Training, Christopher Hunt, met with Soldier On’s ICEO, Prue Slaughter, during Land Forces 2022 to sign the pledge.  

Soldier On supports veterans and their families to thrive by delivering a range of early intervention services to veterans and their families in many locations across Australia.  It does so by focusing on Health and Wellbeing, Employment Support, Learning and Education programs, and Participation and Social Connection.

Sayres Australia recognises the value that veterans bring to any organisation.  We employ veterans and family members of veterans in key roles, and we are committed to supporting veterans in their transition to civilian life, including finding long-term and meaningful careers.  

#SoldierOnAustralia #ThePledge

Sayres Australia attends LAND FORCES 2022

The International Land Defence Exposition proves a rewarding and valuable experience.

This year, for the first time, Sayres Australia was one of the 810 participating exhibitor companies at Land Forces 2022, the region’s premier biennial International Land Defence Exposition.  With around 20,000 total attendances at the event, the exhibition floor presented endless engagement opportunities. 

Land Forces 2022 took place over 4 – 6 October 2022. Held at the Brisbane Exhibition and Convention Centre, the event attracted record numbers. Land Forces 2022 brought together Australian and international industry, defence, academia, and government representatives. Offering a conference program, an industry exhibition and formal networking and engagement programs, the event was a huge success. 

“We enjoyed meeting other defence industry Small to Medium Enterprises. We also had the opportunity to showcase Sayres Australia’s capability and value-add to other large defence primes,” said Christopher Hunt, Sayres Australia’s Director of Training Development.

In addition to the engagement opportunities, an array of leading Australian capabilities and technology was on display. This was of great interest to Sayres Australia.  “I particularly enjoyed seeing the latest implementation of old and new technologies in training, with the aim of improving the learning experience,” Hunt said.

The event also presented a key forum for the Australian defence industry. Organisations had the chance to explore innovative and collaborative opportunities.  “It was great to meet with other companies to discuss how we can work together, and help on various projects,” said Hunt.

The Sayres Australia team now look forward to exhibiting at the next INDO PACIFIC International Maritime Exposition, to be held in Sydney in November 2023.

The 2022 Goldrick Conference: Indo-Pacific Maritime Strategy in the 21st Century provided great food for thought

Writes Sayres Australia Training Development Specialist, Leah Frauenfelder.

On 21 September 2022 I attended the Australian Naval Institute (ANI) Goldrick Conference at Canberra’s Australian Defence Force Academy. This year’s Conference was an event organised as part of the Corbett 100 project, which marks the centenary of the death of the maritime strategist Sir Julian Corbett (1854-1922).

Twenty international and Australian experts from Defence, industry and academia presented their insights into Australian, Indo-Pacific and international perspectives on maritime strategy.

I enjoyed the discussion of the relevance of Corbett’s contribution to modern strategy. It was explained that Corbettian thinking does not apply verbatim, nor does Corbett claim to provide a holistic guide. As stated on the day, Corbett indicates this by his 1911 text’s title Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, by which he seems to acknowledge this to be a wider, ongoing discussion. 

Corbett understood the great potential of maritime warfare for a state suited to it, and he focused on the enduring concept known as sea control today. “In the conduct of naval war all operations will be found to relate to two broad classes of object. The one is to obtain or dispute the command of the sea, and the other to exercise such control of communications as we have, whether the complete command has been secured or not.” (Some Principles of Maritime Strategy)

The speakers described the importance of examining the publications of distinguished naval thinkers and historians, as well as past events, when developing future naval strategy. It was mentioned that history (neither a panacea nor algorithm) is no guarantee for strategic success, however as the only evidence we have, we can use it to draw lessons and look at parallels. I felt one theme emerged across multiple presenters: ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.’ 

From an Australian perspective, key points were made regarding the country’s dependence on maritime trade routes. For example, that sea power and maritime security are more than naval power:  the ability for the country to protect its resources and sea lanes is economic power. It was also noted that the era of AUKUS puts us in a unique environment, facing a range of strategic challenges. 

The strategy discussion was fascinating. Questions posed by international speakers explored the catalysts for strategy: ‘If maritime strategy and technology have a symbiotic relationship, what role does new technology play?’ and, ‘Do platforms, not strategies, drive naval strategies? And if this is the case, should it be the other way around?’ Another question raised for the audience was: ‘Are the overarching principles of maritime strategy new, or enduring?’ 

The Conference provided a range of engaging presentations from leading experts in their fields. Across the speakers I saw great appreciation for the evolving, complex and critical role of Indo-Pacific maritime strategy, and the value historical studies bring to the development of current strategic theory. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Sayres Australia.

Sayres Australia teams up with AUKUS Jobs

An innovative recruitment platform means Sayres Australia can find the right people, at the right time.


AUKUS Jobs has a fresh approach to recruitment, with significant benefits for jobseekers and employers alike.  

Sayres Australia has teamed up with AUKUS Jobs, so we can target people with the right skills and experience. 

Mark Korsten, CEO of AUKUS Jobs explains how they’ve reinvented the way jobseekers and employers connect: “The traditional processes for shortlisting candidates requires dozens of CVs to be written by candidates, and then read by employers. This process is slow, expensive, inaccurate and boring. 

Our approach is to create a detailed family of defence relevant skills and experience, and to allow candidates to score their competency and experience against those most relevant to them. We allow employers to blend and weight any combination skills and experience to describe their “perfect fit”, and then consider candidates in ranked order of best mathematical match. The mathematical matching process is very accurate and very powerful. Employers can save hundreds of hours per year by only needing to review the most closely matched candidates first.

For jobseekers, this means they only need to create their profile once to be considered for thousands of roles throughout their entire career journey, and they are guaranteed to be seen if they have the right mix of skills and experience for any role. As an added bonus, by presenting candidates anonymously in the first instance, we’ve removed the unconscious biases that occur when a name appears at the top of a CV. Everyone wins!”

“We are excited to be working with AUKUS Jobs, as it gives us the ability to engage in highly targeted talent acquisition,” said Sayres Australia’s General Manager Mary Powell. 

The platform offers efficiencies when compared with more traditional recruitment methods.

“Rather than spending time and resources looking for candidates who may not see our ads and/or socials, we can go straight to AUKUS Jobs’ agile workforce platform and search for people with the specific skills and experience that we need,” she said. 

The use of more focused recruitment processes makes the search for – and the identification and recruitment of – the right candidates a lot quicker and easier than it has been in the past.  

As Sayres Australia continues to grow, the company will utilise AUKUS Jobs’ platform to maintain streamlined recruitment processes. 

And the benefits are clear. 

“As we utilise AUKUS Jobs’ efficient platform we know that we are targeting the right cohort of people with the skills and experience that we, and our valued clients, need,” Powell said. 

Sayres Australia and Serco partner on bid for LAND 8710 Phase 1A landing craft 

Sayres Australia is proud to provide a tailored training solution for Serco’s ‘Oboe’ design, a state-of-the-art amphibious vessel.

The Government is investing up to $800 million to upgrade Army’s amphibious capabilities.  The LAND 8710 Phase 1A program will introduce the next generation of medium landing craft, to replace the Australian Army’s ageing fleet of LCM-8 landing vessels.

On 9 May 2022, Serco and Civmec announced a joint venture named ‘Australian Maritime Alliance’ (AMA) to bid for LAND 8710 Phase 1A. The AMA will propose meeting the LAND 8710 requirement with Serco Australia’s Oboe Littoral Manoeuvre Vessel Medium (LMV-M).

Sayres Australia, a leading provider of ADF-compliant Training Development services, is proud to work as part of the Serco AMA bid for LAND 8710.  Craig Powell, Chief Executive of Sayres Australia, said he was delighted to partner with Serco with all parties sharing the commitment to offer Defence the best solution possible. “Our partnership with Serco is a great example of a large Defence Prime working with a small Australian business,” he said. “And our business can provide specific expertise and skills that augment and improve the overall capability that Industry is able to offer Defence.”

The Oboe design and a United States Navy Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD). Image: Serco Asia Pacific

Designed to enhance the ADF’s capabilities to operate in the region’s littoral domain, the Oboe offers an extended range and generous accommodation facilities, to support long endurance independent operations.

At Tasmania’s Australian Maritime College, the Oboe model underwent extensive tank testing, and rigorous speed and performance trials. Serco will use the trial results to enhance the craft’s design and refine performance specifications to meet Defence requirements. 

Introducing the optimised craft to service would require an extensive training solution. Sayres Australia brings particular strengths to the partnership: deep expertise in the ADF Systems Approach to Defence Learning (SADL), and in the management and governance of large-scale Defence training programs. “We have the ability to provide an end-to-end training design service on behalf of Serco on any capability project,” he said. And this ability is key to the LAND 8710 bid. “The bid incorporates comprehensive introduction to service training packages to upskill personnel, and options to provide operational training and certification and through life training support,” explained Powell. “In addition to platform design, construction, delivery and ongoing through life support.”

The Oboe is an amphibious vessel capable of holding ship-to-shore and shore-to-shore operations. Image: Serco Asia Pacific

The preferred tenderer for LAND 8710 Phase 1A is expected to be announced in late 2023 or early 2024. It is proposed the new vessels will be introduced into service from 2026.

“For us, the most exciting part of this opportunity is how a complete team of industry partners has been combined,” said Powell. “And together, we will provide a whole of life capability package for Defence, to support the one platform.”

For more information go to: https://www.serco.com/aspac