Mr Rennie Fritschy becomes Chancellor of CQU from tomorrow, after being installed during Saturday morning's Rockhampton graduation ceremony.

His background includes broad manufacturing industry experience covering alumina, nickel, petrochemicals and textiles.

He was chief executive of three sites over a period of 14 years, leading between 750 and 1300 people, and managed operating budgets of between $150 and $450 million.

Mr Fritschy has experience with broad governance implementation including risk management, action plans, major hazard and operability studies, ISO 9001, environmental system ISO 14001, community relations strategies and plans, five-year rolling operations and capital budgets and 10-year + physical assets maintenance plan. He also has experience with the balanced scorecard measurement/accountability system including cascading key performance indicators to all levels in the organisation.

At QAL (Queensland Alumina) Mr Fritschy increased alumina production by 0.5 mio tonnes (from 3.2 to 3.7 mio) with minimal capital expenditure and improved alumina product quality to world class level.

As Site General Manager in the Textile industry, he benchmarked best practice at three sites in Australia together with managers and union reps (20 people) and then implemented a new EBA followed by a quality driven recovery where all 750 people were trained in quality tools through TAFE resulting in defects being reduced to world class levels, workplace health and safety gold awards being achieved, costs being significantly reduced and ISO 9001 being achieved. A very high level of people involvement led to this success together with highly visible management. Rennie became a fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia by invitation because of these achievements.

He has held a Divisional Quality Manager position in ICI (now Orica) responsible for ISO implementation in five sites. He was a qualified ISO auditor and a qualified Crosby Quality System Trainer (continuous improvement).

Other: Nine years in the CMF (Army Reserve) in infantry, signals, transport and engineering.

Chairman of Town Board (local council) for three years.

Chairman of Credit Union for two years reversing a negative cash flow situation.

Indigenous Relations Accountability for three years.

Government liaison at State and Territory level and occasionally at Federal level.

Local community service in various Rotary Clubs.

Two overseas assignments in Germany and Switzerland, total three years.

Received The James Goldston Industry Award 2001 from CQU for service to the James Goldston Faculty of Engineering and Physical Systems at CQU.

Qualifications: Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) from University of Sydney.

Bachelor of Economics from University of WA.

GAICD (graduate diploma in corporations laws) University of New England.

International Advanced Management Program IMI Geneva.

Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia.