Wendy Lindgren OAM

"I was just doing what I did," she says. "It was something that needed to be done.”

Wendy left school the day she turned 15 and began working in an office while completing her Intermediate and Leaving Certificates at night. She received a scholarship to attend Newcastle's Teachers College, became the first in her family to attend university, and unknowingly began a lifelong relationship with the University of Newcastle.

"It has benefitted me in terms of how I behave, how I think, how I do things. It's an invaluable experience going to university. "

A career in teaching took her to classrooms across the Hunter, from Waratah to Cardiff, Swansea, and eventually TAFE, where she helped establish the Newcastle TAFE Child Studies Course.

Her passion for early education would be a fixture over the decades to come.

Having relied on community-based preschool for her own children, Wendy later played a vital role in preserving access to quality early childhood education for other working families as one of the founders and CEO of Children's Services Community Management Limited.

"There were some preschools that were going to close because they couldn't get committees and you weren't allowed to trade if you didn't have a committee. So we thought we'd take over their management, turn them around, and use them as examples of good quality care," she says. "We've done that."

Her work has ensured the continuity of a number of centres in the region.

"If you see something that you think is valuable, and it's under threat for whatever reason, there are people prepared to put their shoulder to the wheel to save it. That's what you do."

Beyond the Hunter, Wendy's longstanding sector advocacy has sought to influence government policy and professional standards, particularly through her previous role as Chair of Community Early Learning Australia.

She even applied her can-do leadership approach to her hobbies, including the Willoughby Symphony Choir, where she served as President for the last 18 years.

"I joined the choir, then I got on the committee, and then I was the Vice-President. When the President left, I thought I could do that job, so I put my hand up."

The same impulse helped Wendy and a small group of members build a community for graduates of the University of Newcastle living in Sydney. What began as a catch-up in a Chinese restaurant grew under Wendy's leadership into a thriving Sydney chapter, extending the University's reach beyond Newcastle.

"I think people crave a good, happy community. It's a two-way street. You do things, but you get a lot back."

To Wendy, ever humble, the act of service is not extraordinary.

"It's just life," she says. "It's just the outworking of life."