Victor Ugarte will be supporting his native Peru and his adopted country of Australia when the two nations clash in a World Cup play-off on Tuesday.
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The Socceroos beat UAE 2-1 last week. Now they must beat Peru - a tougher opponent - to advance to the World Cup finals in Qatar in December.
If they can overcome their South American opponents, they will qualify for their fifth consecutive World Cup.
"I'm glad Australia has won one of the play-offs and obviously I have mixed feelings about the next game. It's impossible not to," said Victor, who is CEO of Varley Defence in Tomago.
"Anything can happen in soccer, so let the best team win. Either way, I feel like a winner seeing my two favourite teams making it this far."
Victor flew to Phuket in Thailand at the weekend.
"I'll be in Phuket at the Aussie Bar with a bunch of friends, wearing the shirt and cheering for both teams," he said.
On The Beach
To mark the 15th anniversary of the Pasha storm last week, Newcastle's Peter McNair recounted his experience.
"I was on the beach the day of the Pasha storm in Newcastle in June 2007," Peter said.
"When I heard the broadcast on local radio, I knew there was a big storm but not how big. I thought I was going to see a fishing trawler on the beach, but it was something much bigger!
"I reached the beach about 2.30pm, around four hours after the Pasha Bulker had grounded on Nobbys beach.
"There was complete chaos."
He said the beach car park was "a completely unfenced emergency zone".
"The last crew members were just being taken off the ship by helicopter, which itself received static electric shocks from the Pasha. I was able to walk through the emergency zone directly on to the beach.
"I stayed until about 4pm, when my camera died from water damage."
Peter said his picture of the ship from the beach captured "the drama and danger of the day, as well as the intensity of the storm".
"I've seen many pictures of the ship, but none taken from the beach on the day of the grounding. By the next morning, no one could wander on to the beach."
The Network Effect
Newcastle organisation Emergent Group has launched a creative offensive in "the talent war".
A new initiative called the "network effect" calls for anyone in the community to recommend a candidate for a position with the group's companies.
The nominator will be rewarded with a substantial sum of money if their candidate is successful.
With the new federal government's commitment to act on climate change, Emergent Group aims to contribute people and skills to the effort. However, this is a period of high workforce mobility and tough competition among companies for employees. Traditional means of recruitment are not working like they once did.
Executive director of strategy and innovation, Glenn Platt, said Emergent Group was "working on solving some of the most challenging issues facing our community".
"We need Australia's best talent to do this. We're an organisation that applies leading science to solve big challenges. We realised that network theory could be used to address our recruitment challenges," he said.
Network theory reveals the power of interconnection. The network effect works by rewarding people who recommend a successful candidate.
"Anyone who recommends a person who is selected for interview will receive $500. If that person goes on to be employed by one of the Emergent Group family of companies, the total reward for the nominator jumps to $5000. A person can even nominate themselves for a role."
To help address the gender imbalance in the team, Emergent Group is encouraging nominations of women candidates by increasing the finder's reward. If the nominated candidate is successful and a woman (including cis, trans and gender diverse), the total reward rises to $600 for an interview and $6000 if they are employed.
"Our motivation here is simple - greater diversity is good for the business and we need to increase our gender diversity."
