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Gwen Gray, L.AIRAH

Gwen Gray became AIRAH’s first full female member when she joined in 1967.

During World War II, Gray worked in the drawing office of the Department of Defence Production at Fishermen’s Bend in Melbourne, where Beaufort bombers and Beaufighters were manufactured. At war’s end, she was engaged by Bassett Consulting, where she worked as a mechanical engineer for 40 years.

Her impressive CV includes projects such as the Royal Melbourne Hospital boiler extensions in the early 1960s, and the construction of the Arts Centre Melbourne in the 70s. Gray also helped develop a para-professional course at RMIT for refrigeration and air conditioning.

​Even today, women are a minority in HVAC&R; when Gray started her career, female HVAC&R workers were practically unheard of.

“At the children’s hospital in 1960, when I went onto the sites the message would go around: ‘lady on site’,” Gray says. “There was a very courteous approach to women in those days, although we still were mistaken for secretaries. But once they got to know me and knew what I was talking about we got on famously.”

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