CHRIS Baker was born in Hardingstone in England.
His family emigrated to Australia as ten–pound poms in 1969 when he was a toddler, settling first in Wangaratta and later moving to Eldorado.
After some years in Melbourne, Chris finally moved back to the area with his wife, Michelle, and two kids, Kimberley and Hartley about eight years ago.
The couple found a property in Stanley with a wonderful garden they love and with enough room to experiment with self–sufficiency and small–scale agriculture.
What's your job?
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I have run my own consultancy, Kallista Consulting, for 16 years.
I provide training, consulting and mentoring services in process improvement and leadership.
It's a challenging and exciting role with a diverse client base that includes manufacturers of all sizes, from small family–owned business to major FMCG brands, federal, state and local government agencies, defence suppliers, police, agriculture and much more. It never gets boring!
What brought you to this role?
My career started with tutoring in physics and electronics at LaTrobe University in Bendigo.
This experience gave me a love of teaching which I have always carried.
I then moved into high tech manufacturing and was very fortunate to receive excellent coaching in the 'Lean Six Sigma' methodologies that were emerging from the automotive industry.
This gave me a head start in the field and proved invaluable in my later management roles.
With experience, I began to connect the dots between productivity, leadership and workplace culture.
What do you love about your job?
I get to see how so many things are done, which is fascinating, but I think the main thing is seeing the huge improvements in workplace culture.
Watching managers grow in confidence and hearing teams report how much more they enjoy their work is incredibly satisfying.
What do you do in the community?
My main community contribution is as a volunteer firefighter with the Stanley Fire Brigade.
I also have a keen interest in local history, and recently contributed some of the historical notes for the Walking Stanley Project.
What's the most important current community issue for you?
While I'm not a primary producer myself, Stanley is largely an agricultural community, so sustainability and how we adapt to changes in bushfire severity, rainfall, extreme weather and rising fertiliser costs will be the biggest challenges ahead.
What would you do to solve, change or improve that situation?
We can all work to be more self–sufficient, conserve resources and try to shift towards renewable energy sources.
Working as a community to experiment with new (or old) agricultural techniques and sharing ideas and successes will be paramount.
Technology also has a significant role to play.
What's the most important current world issue for you?
Global instability and the lack of cooperation among nations undermines progress on all the other issues.
If the person you would most like to meet came to Indigo, or was already here, who would that be and what would you show them?
Billy Connolly. I'd show him the hard–working people and the inspirational leaders in the area.
And I'd take him gold panning.
Why would you show him that?
He'd love meeting those people and would make us all laugh and feel good about ourselves in the process.
And I also think he'd love turning up some gold in his pan.
What book are you reading?
'An economic history of the world since 1400' by Professor Donald J. Harreld.
