Captain Walter (Wal) Stuart is a former Master Mariner who sailed with the Adelaide Steamship Company, John Manners and Company of Hong Kong and the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand across deck officer levels from cadet officer through to Master during his seagoing service.

After leaving the sea Captain Stuart worked ashore in positions ranging from Assistant Marine Superintendent, Savage River Mines in Port Latta, Tasmania through to Assistant and Deputy Harbour Master and Harbour Master positions in a number of ports, including Newcastle, NSW and Devonport, Tasmania, before taking up a position with the South Australian Department of Marine and Harbor’s.

Captain Stuart’s first Departmental position in South Australia was as Port Manager/Pilot of Marine and Harbors at the Port of Thevenard; a position that he took up in December 1991.  In 1994 he was appointed as the South Australian Department of Transport’s Manager Marine Safety at which time he was delegated by the Minister for Transport to be the State Chairman of the National Plan to Combat Pollution of the Sea by Oil and the State Oil Spill Commander.

As Manager Marine Safety Captain Stuart was responsible for four key functional areas, these were:

• Marine Safety Services
• Recreational Boating Services
• Safety Standards
• Ship Survey

Captain Stuart’s responsibilities in managing the four functional areas included the development of oil spill contingency plans to mitigate the impact of marine oil spills and ensuring that the State had in place comprehensive operational, environmental, administrative, financial and logistic arrangements to give effect to the aims and objectives of the plans.

Captain Stuart was South Australia’s delegated State Marine Pollution Controller (SMPC) with responsibility to the State Government Minister for Transport for overall control of all operations to mitigate the impact of marine oil spills. He has significant oil spill response management experience arising from his role as SMPC during his period of tenure with the South Australian Department of Transport.

In 2001 Queen’s Birthday Honours List Captain Stuart was awarded the Australian Public Service Medal (PSM) in recognition of his “outstanding public service and innovation in Marine Safety and Marine Pollution Control”.   He was also awarded the Transport South Australia ERAS Award of Excellence in Marine Operations for oil spill response.  Captain Stuart was awarded the Merchant Navy Service Cross during his seagoing service.

Captain Stuart 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.