Alumni

First established in 1980 as Wantirna High School, our College has grown to almost 1500 students with a reputation for progressive teaching practices that achieve outstanding student outcomes. Commencing in 2025, we hope to run annual Alumni tours at the College, connect with past students, and facilitate connections within the Alumni community and the College.

To join our Alumni community, please follow THIS link.

We are proud to have several staff members who also are Wantirna College Alumni.

David Cartwright – Class of 1989

I’m a Dad of three who all have attended Wantirna College.

• Piper Class of 2022
• Bree Class of 2024 and
• Cooper who is currently in Year 10.

I am also the School Council President and in that role really enjoy learning more about the workings of the school and having the opportunity to work closely with the school leadership team. I lived close to the school growing up and attended Templeton Primary school before Wantirna High and passed my VCE in 1989. I was one of the quieter students, I played Trombone in a number of the school bands through to end of Year 9 (and liked to get involved in the school productions – helping with lighting). I don’t remember any notable sporting achievements, but I did get involved.

When I left Wantirna I was accepted into Bachelor of Computing (Information Systems) at Monash University completing that in 1994. Graduating from Monash I moved into a role as a “National Space Analyst” which sounds like I became an astronaut, but really meant I was working for Coles putting together the right use of space for every store.

I’ve continued to work for Coles and related businesses since then and if you include my 6 years as a casual bakery boy at Knox City I have worked for them for over 38 years across Buying, Insights, Pricing, Supply Chain, Range and Space roles. I am currently the Floor Planning Manager looking after the team that decides where and how much space each product group receives in every store.

Wantirna gave me a good start, and has given my family lots of opportunities to discover their wings.

Debbie Liew – Class of 1996

I attended Wantirna College from Year 7 to 12 (1991-1996) achieving a TER of 93.0 for VCE. In year 7, I was a student that studied English as a second language and enjoyed Home Economics, History and Geography. For VCE studies I focused on STEM subjects of Chemistry, Physic, Specialist Maths and Chinese.

I went on to study chemical engineering at the University of Melbourne. After graduation, I worked in a number of industries, first in zinc/gold mining with Pasminco in Tasmania (2001) as a metallurgy vacation student, then I did a stint at the BHP Olympic Dam uranium/copper mine in SA (2006) in the Radiation lab, then in petroleum with Shell (2007) in corporate HSE.

I joined Origin Energy in the LPG business in 2011 and have now moved into their power generation business where I oversees emergency management and enterprise risk management for Origin’s power plants across Australia including Australia’s largest renewable battery energy storage system (BESS), next to the coal fired Eraring power station in NSW.

I have a passion for STEM and want to encourage young women (and men) to pursue STEM as it offers a range of diverse and interesting subjects and career paths now and into the future.