The Beginning

Summer Of 1973

Big House Hotel, Sussex Street, Sydney

It all began at the end of the summer of 1973, with Bligh being born in Sydney into a hotelier family that operated a waterfront hotel in Sussex Street opposite the main Sydney Port.

Hotel life provided childhood memories and introduced me to a wide variety of people from varying walks of life, that all contributed to society in varying ways.

I had a mother that was amazing, a great role model, great mentor and set the standards of what was expected by her and the community more widely. A woman that co-ordinated the home and held down one full time job all her life. Then a Dad that worked in the hospitality and later real estate businesses, but also lead major community and business change such as the 38 hour and 4 days a week compressed rosters and ownership for business owners of leasehold premises to allow investment into the business premises not only for the business owners benefit but the local community and the State.

With pre-school in High Street in Millers Point, this was truly city living decades before it became trendy. The community consisted of small business people, blue collar workers on the waterfront, city white collar workers, trade unionists, conservatives, all in a neighbourhood of public housing that had existed since colonization almost two hundred years earlier.

One of a number of those life long things I will remember was at the age of 4 years old was seeing the Giraffes come off the boats at the Sydney Waterfront - a real life Madagascar the Movie experience. These were a part of the 37 animals that were at the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo when it opened in 1977.

The other childhood memories that remain with me until this day were our Sunday picnics at Lane Cove National Park which were a routine for the family after working Monday to Saturday - 6am to 6pm, and the occasional Sunday morning.

Lastly living in the hotel, I remember the Sesame Street light shade with all my “special friends” turning in the breeze on those balmy summer nights on the first floor residence. It was a great family home and an environment I felt safe in.

School Years

At school age the family moved to the western suburbs of Sydney, to Wentworthville, staying in the hotel industry, operating a large suburban hotel-motel, drive in bottle shop and liquor barn on the Great Western Highway at Wentworthville.

School years started with the Catholic sisters at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. This progressive school provided a great balance in education including the cornerstones such as English, Mathematics and the Sciences through sport, cookery, art and social engagement skills.

At start of Grade 5, the Marist Brothers at St Patrick’s Dundas, continued the well rounded education, with agricultural studies, commerce, home economics and the staples of English, mathematics and the sciences. Being the last graduating class of the Marist Brothers single gender Grade 6 class, this made way for the offering of co-education in Grade 11 and 12.

Secondary school education started at St Patrick’s but in 1986 an opportunity was provided to go to boarding school, St Josephs College at Hunters Hill. An opportunity provided by two working parents who made significant sacrifice to allow it to happen. It was certainly a well rounded education of the life core studies along with exposure to the Visual Arts, a variety of sporting activities such as rowing, rugby union, swimming, athletics and long distant running. This environment provide routine and structure that has contributed to my ability to work from home for decades and stay focused on the task at hand.

University and Graduations

After completion of secondary education, Bligh was the first member of his family to attend university and graduated six year later with a Bachelor Degree in Construction Management at the University of Technology, Sydney. Beyond understanding the essential of construction including surveying, quantity surveying, structural engineering, services and building practices, the studies gave me a better understanding of contextual studies, how the built environment impacts individuals, communities, neighborhoods and society as a whole.

At the same time, Bligh completed an Associate Diploma in Property Services, that being Real Estate and Valuation through the Sydney Institute of Technology and also completed a Masters in Commerce majoring the Valuation at the University of Western Sydney.

University Of Technology Sydney (UTS)

During the years of studying there was a contribution to the design of a new retail walk in bottle shop at Wentworthville on Station Street (being the main Street), including labouring during the fiout of the bottle shop as my first job out of school.

I worked in the shop and stepped into a junior managerial role when Elvie my mother had a partial stroke in 1993 as a result of a surgery procedure.

After 2-3 years of the shop opening, the family won the most outstanding Bottle Shop in the Parramatta Region. This was a people choice award and the store was renowned for its extensive wine selection as well as its broad selection of beers and spirits.

When the bottle shop was sold, we moved back into the hotel industry taking over the management of a tavern that we fitted out just off Sydney Central Station in Mary Street in Surry Hills.

The early 1990’s were busy times with my true first time out of school getting my teeth stuck into the operations of the hotels and off-premise liquor businesses in suburbs that were transforming into the next era of their community development.

The hey-day years leading into the GFC

The period from 1992 to 2008 saw me, start as a part time administrative assistant in my fathers brokerage and valuation business. This saw the introduction of computerisation into the business, the development of the first website for a specialist commercial real estate and valuation practice in New South Wales and the delivery of property Information Memorandums, Property Valuation Report and Contracts For Sale digitally to our customers via secure links off our website.

During this period of sixteen years there was an evolution in the industry from brewery owned properties and individual and family ownership to the corporatisation of the industry.

The era also saw the introduction of video card machines and then later poker machines into hotels with the evolution of the tradable poker machine entitlement.

Working up through the ranks from administrative assistant to partner in the firm, just prior to the GFC the agency JTW dominated the Sydney Morning Herald, Hotels For Sale Section each Saturday, in the days of print media.

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) hits and the industry stalls instantly, with price corrections that would take a decade to recover from.

The GFC saw Bligh take his own first steps into the hotel industry in regional and country pubs.

Operations of the mid-north coast of New South Wales and Northern New South Wales both individually and in partnership saw great transformations of a handful of hotels with their turnover in some cases doubling and their contribution to the local community representing “old school” hotelier values.

But the hotel lifestyle of 7 days a week commitments and long hours took its toll after almost 5 years back in the industry operating three sites at once.

2012 saw Bligh return into the commercial property circle providing commercial tenancy advisory to the global software and computer giant IBM. These were an amazing two years and saw the evolution of his next career path being Workplace Strategy, design and relocation management.

Where life takes you?

Bligh then moved to Hewlett Packard to coordinate their space planning and space management function firstly in Australia and New Zealand and then expanding the deployment of the Workplace function into South-East Asia, China, Korea, Japan, and India. This role ran for close to two years.

At the end of 2015, Bligh started his own Space Planning business known as WSPS - Workplace Space Planning Solutions, which started as a corporate space planning advisory business with it growing over three years from two staff members to six staff members.

Workplace Space Planning Solutions

In the end of 2017 WSPS was rebranded Workplace Services Australia (WSA) and the evolution of Workplace Strategy, Change Management, Digitisation and Document Management all grew out of clients needing more than just traditional space planning services.

In late 2018 WSA peaked with over 26 staff nationally. There was signs of recession on the horizon with a significant downturn in trade in 2019.

In 2019 Bligh and the family looked at diversification of the family companies off the back of the impact of the downturn in trade in the SME business prior to the on-set of COVID.

At the end of 2019 and early 2020 then came the unforeseen game changer for the world economy COVID-19.

A business with annual turnover of $4 million per annum to $200,000 over night. With borders closed and all of our clients having their workforce work from home, there was no business and often where there was business the WSA team did not have the expertise in those geographical locations to service the customer.

This saw a major evolution to the WSA operating model to where our clients were looking towards us as their workplace Change Management and Communication advisors, with greater focus on spacious awareness and the impacts on working from home (WFH) on an organisations Workplace Culture.

The period from 2019 to 2021 also saw my first experience on how public listed Australian companies began to withhold payments from smaller suppliers in Australia for services rendered, see the smaller privately owned clients enter Liquidation or Receivership and the big public company was no where to be seen with their corporate, social or morale obligations. Where was the regulator the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), asleep at the wheel, with a blindfold on.

In 2019 saw the diagnosis of Bligh’s mother Elvie with pancreatic cancer. With an expectation of only 3-4 months to live the family took the advise of medical professionals to keep Elvie’s metal health positive, whilst she was undergoing extensive chemo therapy.

During this period Bligh worked with Monash University and donated to the research into pancreatic cancer. Identifying the various type of “geno deficiency” that contribute to pancreatic cancer.

Bligh and John also worked with surgeons out of Monash to disconnect the nerve endings into Elvie’s spine that saw her being able to reduce the dependency on prescribed pain killers by 40%.

In 2022, Elvie lost the fight to pancreatic cancer, lighting the fuse that is the commitment to one of our community projects in 2025.

In 2022, the family was involved in a mix use development in Surfers Paradise. This project saw a huge escalation in construction costs and saw the family take a strategic change in its property and business approach were it was no longer going to lease premises or properties, with a clear strategy of being a family of their own destiny, being the freehold owner of any property to be in the portfolio.

In April 2023, the Australian Securities & Investment Commission disqualified Bligh for three years for being a Director of an Australian Corporation. This was off the back of two companies one that went into liquidation in mid 2019 and then a second one in 2021. The decision of ASIC to disqualify Bligh is currently being reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

In 2023, Bligh moved out of the day to day client facing role with Workplace Services Australia, to concentrate on Strategic Projects, Governance and Corporate Affairs, which has a focus on once in a life time projects, the construction of bids for the team at Workplace Services Australia, the development of the Australian Art Artefacts Logistics business and the roll out of the next generation hotel and hospitality group.

His second role and as important if not more important is the role of Governance and Corporate Affairs. This is a family group of companies role that Bligh has wanted to take charge of as a consequence of his lessons learnt from business activities pre 2023.

At certain milestones in one’s life you decide what you want from life.

At the end of 2024, Bligh decided to concentrate on doing things that would make a difference to community and also Australia’s sovereignty.

Watch out in 2025 in the Media Centre for updates on the Strategic Projects, Governance and Corporate Affairs, in particular the formation of the Elvie Williams Pancreatic Cancer Foundation, a leading strategic aviation project for Australia, Bligh’s appeal against the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, and some other interesting and life changing projects for communities and Australia as a whole through the Research and Development process plus important lobbying with the Commonwealth Government of Australia that are strangling business and verging on dissolving democracy.