Ray Edebone joined William Angliss Institute in 1982, and during his 21 year career was responsible for running many different areas within the college. Originally hired as a controller tasked to deal with maintenance, cleaning and central stores, his job expanded once the college and the hospitality industry began to expand and grow.

Ray’s main tasks involved managing food orders for all classes, and was charged with computerising orders into a single system that was streamlined, co-ordinated and delivered with greater ease.

When we first got there in 1982, everything was written by hand, there was nothing on computers. And one of my roles was installing a computer system, which covered all the food purchases and storage, kitchen operations and front office operations. Then I also had to write up the workshop manuals so the teachers knew how to place their orders on the computers

For about three years Ray co-ordinated Institute events and functions, where students served and prepared the food. He remembers being responsible for organising a launch party for the Labor Party, held in one of the restaurants

When Paul Keating wanted to launch his Working Nation to Australia they chose William Angliss Institute, and I had to co-ordinate the front office part, the coaching side of it. … Paul Keating came and all members of the Labor Party were here. Joan Kirner was here, she was the Premier of the time, and Paul Keating was the Prime Minister… and we had a wonderful day.

Ray became more involved with marketing and consultation, and travelled to shopping centres and regional areas to promote food training courses and programs for food handling and management. He was also involved in designing, implementing and co-ordinating the Dive Management Course, a seminal program which focused on and combined diving skills, hotel and tourist management and included modules on marine and boating studies. The program was expanded Australia-wide, and included experiences on island resorts and cruise ships, and was adopted by other institutes and schools, going on to win accolades and the Victorian Award for Innovation

Some highlights of Ray’s long career with the Institute include working with the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival:…they used to come to us and ask if we could help, and for a couple of years we used to [use] the City Circle Trams. Chefs from different restaurants around Melbourne would come to our school and prepare food from their restaurants; put it on trays and then our students would get on trams and hand all the food out to the tram customers … And we had the top restaurants in Melbourne come to the college and they’d prepare their own staff and worked with our apprentices and do all the food preparation, and they used to go off for two weeks each year, and that was a wonderful setup. We used to bake cakes for the launch of the Food and Wine Festival, where we’d go up to Parliament House and have this beautiful big cake presented to the Premier

Ray also remembers how the horror of the Ash Wednesday Fires in 1983 drove the whole college to pull together to prepare meals for all those affected: George Hill [managing chef] got all the students and teachers together and we made about 3000 meals on the first day to send up to the Salvation Army so they could hand it all out to all the victims.

Ray has fond memories of his time at William Angliss, and he talks wistfully about the friendly interaction with staff, teachers and students, and how he enjoyed being a big part of the administration of programs and events