It is a remarkable achievement for a man with no formal qualifications who says his best asset is being able to talk to people and “sell ice to Eskimos”.
As the general manager of GAME Traffic Management and Contracting (a division of Worktrainers) he has overseen huge growth in the business, which in turn supports a social enterprise called Geared4Careers.
Geared4Careers supports local youth to remain in school, achieve their study goals and gain career and employment opportunities.
“I returned to Worktrainers as a 40-year-old and worked as an employment consultant,” Shane explained.
Many of those clients had disabilities and Shane said he would “cold call” businesses and talk to them about recognising people's abilities rather than their disability.
“I still have clients who work at motor dealerships who went in as car cleaners, they were people with a disability who just needed an opportunity,” he said.
“I used to go with them to work and stand beside them while they learned the job.”
Shane recalls one client who became frustrated with his job cleaning up the sludge that spilled each time a truck unloaded.
“I pointed to the factory floor and explained that all those people were relying on him for work because if he didn’t clean up the next truck couldn’t unload, I made his job important,” he said.
It is ironic that Shane spent most of his working life helping people stay at school or getting a start in the workforce because he managed neither as a young lad.
“If Geared4Careers had been there to help me I might not have been kicked out of North Tech,” he laughed.
Shane's hard-working parents, who were tailors, managed to secure him a loan to buy two laundromats in Shepparton.
“My first day of banking I emptied the coins into a bucket and walked up Wyndham St,” he said.
“The bottom fell out of the bucket and 20 cent pieces went everywhere.”
After selling the laundromat business he bought a rubbish truck which kept him busy most of the week, but left one day to take up a gardening contract at ConnectGV.
Before long Shane was the “mower man” in charge of training the disability service provider's clients to work for Good Looking Lawns.
“I suppose it was my first involvement in a social enterprise,” he said.
“I’m still involved with ConnectGV, I think I’ve always liked to help people and make people happy and I always tell people it is fun-raising, not fundraising.”
That leads to a story about auctioning a vasectomy at a charity event which was the subject of fierce bidding by the men and a few wives.
“What they didn’t know is that it was donated by a local vet, so it was for their dog or cat.”
Shane was part of the team at Worktrainers that bid for the Harvest Labour Office contract and won.
“It was a game-changer for us, we didn’t know anything but if you ask enough questions you soon learn,” he said.
It was the same when GAME started, but in typical style Shane just cold-called the biggest operator in Sydney and organised to do some training.
“They were working on the M1 and I was terrified,” he said.
In those early years the modest goal was to generate $300,000 in income a year.
“We are now at $20 million and we pay half of that back in wages, so that means a lot of people are employed, the community is better off and we also get to put a lot more money back into supporting young people through Geared4Careers.”
Post-retirement Shane, a prostate cancer survivor, will continue his work with Shepparton’s Biggest Ever Blokes’ Lunch and devote more time to his grandchildren.
And while he’s hitting the stop-slow buttons, as someone who has always been happy to give back to the community, he doesn’t expect to be quiet for long.
“I love being involved and I have loved my time at work, it has been a fantastic organisation to work for,” he said.
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