Our Training Staff

Tracey Allen

Tracey is a designer who passionately believes that visual communication plays an essential role in improving our world and the lives of the people who share it. Her strong research and communication skills are central to the success and relevance of her design work, seeing her awarded First Class Honours in Design at the University of Technology Sydney. Public recognition for Tracey's work first came when she won the Heidelberg Press Design Award for Best Designer in 2000, competing with designers from right around the world. Since then, she has won many other prestigious awards. Tracey tutored part-time at the University of Technology Sydney in typography for several years before taking the position of Head of Graphic Design at the University of Tasmania in 2001. After four years in the position she missed the challenges of design and the interaction with clients and has since re-established her practice.

Geoff Bagnall

Geoff Bagnall has more than ten years experience in commercial print reprographics and pre-press engineering, developing a high level of skill in most desktop applications related to print graphics such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Corel Draw. Geoff has also had a career in professional photography and photo-journalism, working as a press photographer for Fairfax staple, the Sydney Morning Herald, and continuing to operate freelance to this day. He has formal qualifications in teaching and brings a unique combination of skills and an engaging manner to the training room. Geoff works from our Canberra facility.

Marco Cattaneo

Marco has extensive experience in information management and business process spanning more than two decades. His extraordinary skill base includes HTML, CSS, Flash, video and 3D animation, and he is Adobe Certified in many related applications. Marco is also the founder and managing director of DIGANO, a consultancy developing ITIL certified service management courseware and training modules used throughout the world. Marco works from our Canberra facility.

Bridget Conway-Taylor

Bridget Conway-Taylor has extensive experience in film, television and multimedia as both a producer and a designer/developer. She has been freelance for the the last few years, prior to which she held a senior position with SM2 and later, SBS Digital Media, producing cross-platform projects for broadcast and web including The Colony and Vietnam Nurses, and producing the 2005 Ashes Test Series website which was selected by the National Library of Australia for their prestigious Pandora Web Archive. Bridget holds a Diploma in Multimedia from QANTM College, a Certificate IV in Business Management, and is a member of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association and the Screen Producer’s Association of Australia.

Sean Curran

Sean has been involved in media production for over 15 years and has 4 years of media tutoring experience. After completing 3 years of fine arts training in painting and drawing, he was enamoured by the beauty of the moving image and completed his degree at the College of Fine Arts UNSW as a film and video major. Sean's commercial career began at a post production house in Sydney as a camera operator and editor. He moved on to become the head of post production for the largest video duplication company in Australasia. After a four year stint at Australian Associated Press as a news video producer, he formed his own media company specialising in historical documentary and social research. His most recent project for Fearless media has been teaching digital video editing to the staff at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions NSW.

Tom Gillan

Originally from Hamilton, Scotland, Tom Gillan has lived in Australia for almost 20 years. After studying Psychology at the University of Wollongong and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, Tom moved into the areas of Fine Arts and Design. Tom has been using Graphic Design programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign for the last 10 years, and has worked for several companies, including a film and multimedia company, Kwik Kopy Printing and lately as Graphic Designer for a large designer furniture company. Tom has travelled widely, and is also interested in 3D computer modelling, Autocad and traditional drawing techniques, exhibiting his graphic work every two years. Tom has been training Graphic Design and Publishing courses with Fearless Media since January 2007.

Steve Harries

Steve completed his Bachelor of Applied Science (Computing) in 1992 and has been around computers and programming for more than 15 years. For many years, Steve was development manager at Kodak Australia’s Business Imaging Systems division, and worked on some of Australia’s largest document scanning and conversion projects. In 2000, Steve and another ex Kodak employee joined forces to set up their own company to develop and market document management and imaging systems. Today that company produces a range of commercial web based products developed entirely in PHP and MySQL. Their ‘Docpoint’ document management system is used every day by several major companies across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Malaysia, and has more than one million documents catalogued and stored online.

Michele Havlik

Michele Havlik has a background in art and design and has worked at a number of interesting places in Australia and overseas. She worked at Monash University, teaching, as well as developing web and multimedia applications. She also worked at an advertising agency, creating print and video, and she has run her own business producing hand painted ceramics. Michele currently creates and sells art online in her spare time. Michele has a Master of Arts, Creative Media – RMIT and a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment. Michele’s passions include making the world a better place by encouraging and teaching good design methods, creating art to fill empty spaces, and sharing her knowledge and expertise with others. Pet peeves are overly busy and unusable websites; she believes elegance and simplicity are the key to a great look.

Mark Linton-Smith

Mark is a qualified teacher with 6 years experience teaching English and Music and 15 years of training work with clients such as the Australian Taxation Office, Puma Australia, Ansett Airlines, Country Road, BHP, Ernst and Young, and many others. From 1991, he worked as a freelance trainer for a variety of training organisations and computer companies. From 1992 he was employed by Pilgrim Script as their Senior Training Consultant. During that period, he was responsible for conducting training needs analyses, seminars, and many courses. All courses were evaluated by the trainees, the majority receiving enthusiastic reviews. Since 1993 he has operated as a professional trainer including 6 years with Ernst and Young who secured his services as their preferred trainer. He holds a Bachelor of Education from the University of Melbourne and is an Adobe Certified Instructor.

Phil Moore

Phil comes from a strong creative background with years of experience. He is a Filmmaker (having just completed his first feature film), Musician and Composer, Web Site designer, Writer and Journalist. He has worked as a Music Producer for various artists, written everything from novels to a prize-winning radio series, and been at the forefront of multimedia technologies both as a creative user, and as one of the country’s leading industry commentators. He set up and taught the first ever multimedia course at JMC Academy; and has for nearly twenty years written technical articles, reviews and tutorials for magazine like Video Camera, Audio Technology, APC, and most prolifically PC User Magazine, where he pens a regular monthly column on video and audio. A true renaissance man, Phil has a deep understanding of both the technicalities of computer hardware and software, and how to put these technologies to good use in practically any creative field.

Marte Newcombe

Marte Newcombe has spent the past 23 years studying and teaching in Washington DC. She has had 19 years of teaching experience at the tertiary level, teaching both undergraduate and post-graduate students at Georgetown University, George Washington University and the Corcoran College of Art and Design. She completed a BFA degree at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington D.C. She graduated with a B.A.Dip.Ed from the university of Tasmania and also did post-graduate courses at ANU. She was was awarded 2 faculty research fellowships at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland where she undertook research in computer animation, digital enhancement of satellite imagery and the crossover of art and science. She worked with NASA Goddard in their scientific visualization studio with a team of animators and scientists for the past 9 years. Her digital work for NASA has been published in scientific and design magazines, broadcast on television on a regular basis throughout the USA and the world, and made cameo appearances in movies such as Star Wars and An Inconvenient Truth. She has won several awards and had her work selected for exhibition for the past six years at the prestigious SIGGRAPH International Digital Art and Animation Conference.

Robin Petterd

Robin has close to 15 years experience in digital media. He has a PhD from the Tasmanian School of Art, The University of Tasmania in interactive digital media and studied instructional design at a post-graduate level at the University of Southern Queensland. His creative work has been included in events all over the world including events like Siggraph. Robin's creative work has been a finalist of The Australian Internet Awards in the ‘Use of Multimedia Section’ and The National Digital Arts Awards. Recently he has been teaching at TAFE Tasmania and running the Art, Craft and Design area there. Currently he is working on new interactive projects many of which are focused on eLearning and game based learning.

Annette Rays

Prior to completing her Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication with First Class Honours from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Annette juggled a love of computer technology in the corporate sector with a passion for painting, design and sculpture. It was a moment of serendipity that lead her to combine the best of both passions into a Design Degree. While Annette was studying at UTS, her tutors recognised her technical and communication talents. She has taught there part-time since 2001 in subjects as diverse as typography, motion graphics, fashion illustration, digital illustration & presentation, interactive portfolios, magazine projects and specialist technical presentations. Annette has also given extensive training to designers in the corporate, broadcast and design sectors. One of her greatest joys is demystifying and simplifying the world of computer design so that students can continue to learn when they leave the classroom. Annette is currently completing a Master of Animation at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Beverly Waldie

Beverly Waldie has more than 15 years experience in commercial graphic design and digital publishing. She has extensive pre-press knowledge, working as a studio manager with Autoplot Visual Systems for three years prior to starting her own business. For the last 11 years she has worked as a professional designer working extensively with InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. She works closely with printers and pre-press bureaux and is adept at ensuring colour and product integrity from screen to publication. For 10 years she produced the bi-monthly, full-colour RACT magazine, Motor News, before a sea change to Broome, WA and her eventual return to Hobart. She published the premiere issue of Eat Drink Tasmania with writer Graeme Phillips and current projects include the quarterly trade journals, Tas Regions and Austasia Aquaculture, and labelling and packaging projects for local manufacturers, Beauty and the Bees.