There is an abundance of people with talent, skills and fascinating backgrounds leading our classes and volunteering to make U3A Nunawading a success. As part of our getting to know our team series, this month we talk to German for Travellers Class Leader Dieter Markworth.
Hello to Dieter Markworth
With a seven-year track record of being the U3A Leader of German for Travellers for both the beginners and advanced classes, there are many members who have benefited and enjoyed Dieter’s expertise.
Throughout his life, Dieter has been adept at applying himself to new challenges and this teaching role is part of a long list of achievements.
Building a career
Dieter migrated to Australia from Germany with his family in 1959 at the age of 16. He had left school at 14 and had already undertaken two and half years of an instrument maker apprenticeship in Germany. To complete his apprenticeship, Dieter did another two and half years in Australia as an aircraft instrument technician. At 19, he was hired as a Trainee Customer Service Engineer at IBM. As the youngest person to secure this type of role, he worked as a computer technician for the next 12 years, riding the wave of innovation for these new technological advances.
Through a stellar 35-year career, Dieter rose through the ranks at IBM, becoming a Senior Corporate Examiner in the USA (his experience as an evaluator for the Australian Business Excellence Awards led to this appointment), and a Business Transformation Manager for Australian and New Zealand. These roles involved extensive travel throughout south-east Asia, Japan and German-speaking areas of Europe.
“I left IBM at 55 years of age feeling burnout from all the travel,” Dieter said. “For the next 10 years, I worked as a consultant and promised my wife I would only work 100 days a year. This arrangement worked well, and my contract work thrived with various state governments. I also wrote a book, ‘Holistic Management – the World’s Best and Worst Management Practices’, which was published in December 2014.”
There’s always time for more
As if a busy career and family life raising a son and a daughter weren’t enough, Dieter found time to exercise his pilot’s licence (obtained in 1967), on interstate flights and a 12-day aerial safari into Central Australia. Later he undertook a Glider course with his wife Noelene and became a Silver C level Glider pilot.
When his grandson was four years old, he also turned his skills to creating an electric trainset which he lowers from his roof in the garage.
“My daughter and grandson (who is now 18) have had great fun remodelling it over the years and my fellow Probus members often call around with their grandkids for a happy interactive model train session.”
Teaching German is a joy
Teaching German without any formal qualifications was not an obstacle for Dieter, it was another rewarding challenge he set his mind to.
“I am fluent in German, and all my life I have worked to train and inspire people to learn,” Dieter said. “I also had volunteered at my grandson’s school to teach the preps German and by the end of the year, they could read German well. So, with encouragement from my wife, I volunteered to take the classes at U3A. German is an easy language to learn – it is totally predictable – if you see it written, you can pronounce it correctly! The years have flown by, and I thoroughly enjoy teaching my German classes.”