William Curnow

William, or Bill, Curnow is a multifaceted person. What you make of him depends very much on your own level of understanding as well as the time, context and place of the intersection of your life with him.

He is an unassuming and quiet man with a mind that never stops accumulating and using knowledge for the benefit of others. He sleeps comfortably and sparingly in the knowledge that through his influence in the development of the “gold-standard” Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL)—the world’s premier laboratory for research of dangerous microorganisms—he and his team made the world a safer place for all.

AAHL is the undisputed global benchmark against which every other laboratory in this field is measured. It is the only laboratory on the planet with level Agriculture 4 (AG4; or BSL-4) microbiological containment facilities for the study of diseases such as Hendra virus in horses, Ebola and emerging diseases from isolated population groups and isolated environments.

Bill was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2010 for his many contributions to the following: biological-containment technology; the introduction of private prisons to Australia and South Africa; the development of privately managed public hospitals; construction technology as Conjoint Professor and Chairman of the Institute for Property and Infrastructure, University of Newcastle; his 53-year association and participation in the management of St Peters Lutheran College; the development of St Peters Lutheran College Springfield; and finally his work as an educator.

How did a simple “boy from the bush” achieve that?

Dominant influences in Bill’s life have been the Christian ethos but not its dogma; exceptional parenting by his parents, Bill and Freda Curnow; his maternal grandfather, Carl Lentz; and most importantly, steadfast support and companionship of his wife of 53 years, Margaret (nee Neumann). Bill could not have achieved his career goals without her.

Historical characters of influence include Christ the Servant King, Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Howard Carter, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van De Rohe and Buckminster Fuller. At a contemporary level, influencers include Barry Jones, Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating (on the grounds that you would rather have him inside your tent, peeing out, than outside your tent, peeing in), Bill Snowdon, David Suzuki, Ralph Nader, Ed Codd, Bill Plant, Clive Bennett, Albert Takken, Harry Butler, Sally Chandler, Martin Albrecht, Jack Brabham and Phil Irving. Bill has met and interacted with business and political leaders too numerous to list here. All have contributed, positively or negatively, to Bill’s life and outlook. He hopes fervently that Malcolm Turnbull (Australian PM when this was written and concerning his potential to take action on global warming) will earn a place on his list and it proves to be sooner rather than later. – (He failed to act – editor’s note).

With respect to Parkinson’s Disease (PD) research, Bill has been influential in achieving synergy between Professor Tom Borody, Professor Peter Silburn, Dr Jim Aylward and himself as complementary members of an ad-hoc think tank. So far, this team appears to have made more progress in the last three years than has all official medical research on the subject for the last hundred years. (Refer www.biomiclife.com ).

Books that have influenced him are encyclopaedias in general; Gods, Graves and Scholars by C W Ceram; various works of Charles Dickens; Le Modulor by Le Corbusier and anything to do with science, archaeology, construction and the universe around us.

The whimsical character Don Quixote also figures in his psyche, as Bill is a rational conservationist and a person supporting equality through education. He has frequently found himself tilting at the windmills of the corporate giants of business and politics. Although suffering some bruising at times, he has had a fair measure of success as well.