After completing a motor mechanic’s apprenticeship in country Victoria Ben Cropley served in the Royal Australian Navy from 1963 to 1972 as a naval airman prior to joining the Port of Melbourne Authority’s Port Emergency Service in 1972. From 1972 until the present day he has been engaged full on emergency response activities, including oil spill response operations, with the Port of Melbourne Authority and later Skilled Maritime Services and the Oil Response Company of Australia (ORCA).  Ben is ORCA’s Chief Executive Officer.

Mr Cropley holds a wide range of qualifications and certificates that complements his experience as one of Australia’s most experienced oil spill responders. He is a qualified Master Class IV (Victoria), is a qualified Level 2 commercial diver and has attended a significant number of emergency and oil spill response training courses.  These include airport firefighting, SAR rescue, sea survival, officer advancement, petroleum and chemical tanker safety, on-scene coordinators, oil spill management, oil spill contingency planning, media interview, aerial dispersant operations, oil spill finance and administration and oil spill response incident control system courses.

He has attended a wide range of oil spills in Australian and overseas, including the Evoikos spill in Singapore.  Australian incidents include significant spills such as the Al Qurain, 90 Mile/Golden Beach, Iron Baron, Laura D’Amato and Pacific Adventurer.  He has responded to many types of spilled oil, including heavy fuel oil, marine diesel, crude, palm and white oil spills. Ben has also worked on oil spills that have involved foreshore cleanup operations. Apart from attending significant oil spills he has attended over 1,500 Tier 1 oil spills in an on-call advisory, support, assessment and/or investigative capacity over the past 37 years.  He has worked on spills from operator through to incident controller levels.

Mr Cropley is a highly experienced oil spill response trainer and has developed and delivered oil spill response courses in Australia and overseas, including Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.  Like all ORCA training and operations personnel he draws on his significant spill response experience and knowledge to ensure participants gain maximum benefit from the courses that he is involved with.  He has used his knowledge to provide input to elements of the national competency based training initiatives that are being developed and managed by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

To maintain currency with evolving oil spill response techniques and arrangements he has attended conferences and training exercises in Australia and overseas.

With other qualified ORCA personnel Mr Cropley is able to provide oil spill response equipment maintenance, repair, and assessment and audits services to all company clients and potential clients.

Ben Cropley is a member of the Oil Response Company of Australia’s oil spill response Incident Management Team (IMT) that is available nationwide to provide support to government and industry agencies affected by a major oil spill.