Rotarian Jari presented our guest tonight - Devin Davenport. Devin is a Process Engineer at Steelmaking, working at Liberty GFG. Jari had heard snippets of Devin's story and wondered how Devin's journey in life had lead to he and his family now living and working in Whyalla.
Devin was born in the United States, in the state of Arizona. He grew up in the desert like climate, where there are cacti in place of trees.
When Devin was school age, he joined the Arizona Boys Chorus and travelled around the States performing. Once graduated from high school, he went on to study linguistics in college, while working at Krispy Kreme, among other jobs. When he discovered that linguistics did not lead to a career, he left college and joined the marines.
While stationed in Hawaii, a strike of fate lead to meeting his now wife in a bar while she was on holiday. While their first night ended in her being carried over the threshold, later Devin did it officially when they were married in Hawaii.
Once out of the Marines, Devin moved to St Louis to complete his Engineering Degree. He went on to have a baby and then complete his masters in chemical engineering.
In 2018, after having their 2nd child, Devin's wife received bad news that her dad was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. The prognosis was not good, so the family decided to relocate to Australia. While waiting for the visa process to enable Devin to work in Australia, he stayed at home caring for the kids and his father-in-law.
Finally, once able to return to the workforce, Devin worked in a plastics company and later a heat exchanger business. However these jobs did not provide the challenge he sought in his professional career. He saw an advertisement for Liberty GFG and took the plunge. Now 2 years later, he has settled his family here.
Devin then showed us his Marines certificate (because no one believes him that he was in the Marines!) and then we were treated to some awesome rope tricks.
Devin displaying his rope tricks.