Every day of our lives we talk to strangers on the phone or email and sometimes forget that these people are very special. They live a life just like you, have a family, friends and a life story that in some cases could be made into a movie or a good book. Often you work day in and day out with people that you never really “know”.
Well to change that we launched a series of articles called “Meet the Team”. Our company tries very hard to get to know all our customers and now we would like our customers to know and understand exactly who we are and what we do. To assist this process we share the stories of our team members. The people who make up Rochele Painting are the most important part of our business. Their stories deserve to be shared and enjoyed.
We would like to introduce David. He was born in Brisbane and grew up living in Acacia Ridge. The youngest of three, David has two older sisters. David’s parents divorced when he was young resulting in the family relocating to Kingston for a few years. One day his Mum and step-father decided they needed a change and packed the family up and went on a three month trip around Australia. David has great memories of this trip and it is his goal to do the same with his wife in their twilight years.
Upon return, David’s family relocated to Eight Mile Plains where he completed primary school. David’s first job was working at the local butcher shop, cleaning up. He did this every afternoon after school and on Saturday mornings. David also washed cars for his step-father at his car yard, which he thoroughly enjoyed because he was allowed to move all the cars around the car yard.
By the end of grade seven David’s Mum and Step-Dad had a daughter and two years later another boy which meant a full house with five kids. In 1980 David started high school at Macgregor State High School and couldn’t wait to get out of there as he did not enjoy school. At that time all he wanted to do was get an apprenticeship, work and save for a car.
He left school at the end of grade ten which was common back then and started his apprenticeship with the State Works Department which today is known as QBuild. During his apprenticeship, he purchased his first Chevrolet, a 1964 four door Implala, which he rebuilt and drove for the next ten years.
David met his lovely wife Lynne while he was painting the office where she worked. Not long after he finished his apprenticeship in 1988 he started working at Rochele Painting. It was the year of “Expo” and Brisbane was very busy.
Lynne and David married in 1989 and purchased their first house at Loganlea where they lived for 10 years. During this time David sold his beloved 64 Impala to buy another Chevy This time a 1973 Camaro which he had for a couple of years before they started having kids which led to the inevitable…. “family car”.
Lynne and David had two boys, 14 months apart (that’s a lot of dirty nappies). Knowing he was passionate about cars Lynne kept pushing for David to buy another Chevy. This time he wanted a classic so the choice was a 1957 Chevy 4-door Belair Hardtop and it didn’t take long to track one down. This was about the same time as he was promoted to supervisor at Rochele Painting which doubled the excitement. It took David the next 5 years to rebuild doing nearly all of the rebuild work himself after work and on weekends. During this time, Lynne gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. They also decided to sell their house at Loganlea and purchased a house at Sunnybank where the family lived for three years before moving to Calamvale.
Lynne and David have been married for 24 years this year and are starting to get their time together back slowly. Their two boys are all grown up with one doing an electrical apprenticeship and the other commencing Uni (Bachelor of Environmental Management). Their little girl is now in high school and David is a very proud parent. For their 30th wedding anniversary (2019) David and Lynne are planning on going to Vegas to get married again in one of those little chapels you see in the movies.
As a painter David said he painted just about everything from a floating Chinese restaurant to a tanker trailer and everything in between. However, his hard work and loyatly within Rochele Painting saw him climb the company ladder to arrive at the position of Business Manager where he is in charge of all the daily operations within the company.
David sums things up by saying “I have been very lucky – having a supportive wife and family as well as a great job at Rochele Painting where I have worked for 25 years this Easter! Rocco and Michele have been great employers and I have been made to feel part of their family too”.
