Lifetime of community work wins recognition

Long-time Harvey financial planner Geoff Cattach has had his decades of work in the community recognised on a nation-wide scale, having been awarded AMP’s inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award.

On January 31 at the 2018 Advice Summit in Perth, Mr Cattach was presented with the award which is for a financial planner’s work in the community and not their professional achievements.

Mr Cattach joined AMP in 1965 as a certified financial planner and said one of first clients was still one to this day.

Mr Cattach said his commuinity involvement began when he was 16 and the Harvey Shire Council and the Daily News sponsored a trip for him to the United Kingdom.

“I went away for four months and when I came back I felt I owed the community,” he said.

Mr Cattach was chairman of the Harvey Hospital Board for 25 years, a Harvey shire councillor, a Harvey Rotary Club member for 26 years, a member of Harvey Tennis Club and a parents and citizens committee member.

As chairman of the Yarloop Workshops he oversaw its creation as a museum and is working to build a scale replica after the workshops were destroyed in the 2016 bushfires.

In 1980, Mr Cattach formed a committee to create the Children’s Cancer and Research Foundation, becoming chairman in 1983 and continues in that role still.

The foundation’s lab employs four senior researchers, five assistant researchers, one laboratory assistant and operates out of the Telethon Institute in Perth.

Mr Cattach said every child in WA that presents with cancer is tested through that lab.

In his acceptance speech, to 2165 people, Mr Cattach paid tribute to his late wife Marie for all the support she had given over the years.

“You can’t really be successful in any business if you’re married, without support from your partner,” he said.

“I was so sad that she wasn’t there.

“Without her I just could not have done it because we had two very sick children and that’s why I got involved in a lot of things as well.”