FRANZ GRASSER ELECTED TO THE BIAV BOARD

Congratulations to Franz Grasser of VR Fish who has been elected to the BIAV board for the Chandlery Retailers, Services and Associations division, following the December 14 SGM of the division.

President David Meehan welcomed Franz to the Board saying “Franz is a passionate and experienced person, not only in boating and fishing but more importantly, in the planning and advocacy aspects of boating and fishing. He’ll be a real asset to the Board”. David went on to thank and recognise Stuart Buckingham for his contribution to the Board, as well as Michael Polan who put forward an extremely strong platform to be on the Board, only to be pipped by Franz in a very tight election.

See more about Franz below -

Franz has over 15 years of experience in advocating for boating infrastructure, has lead maritime infrastructure projects such as the Launching Way Master Plan, and has been on several government related advisory groups and committees.

He has been a member and director of VRFish for over 15 years. During this time he has been active in a variety of areas but has always been involved in advocacy for boating infrastructure. This included being the VRFish representative on the Ministerial Advisory Committee for the Boating Safety and Facilities Grants Program for a number of years and under a number of different Governments.

Franz is the Chairman of the VRFish Boating and Infrastructure Reference Group and has been for a number of years. In this role, he played an important part in securing bi‐partisan political support in the run-up to the 2018 election for reform of the Recreational Boating Sector to allocate all licence and registration revenue for the benefit of recreational boating.

Franz will be working with our CEO, Board and Advocacy Committee on the  Better Boating Fund, and the all‐important next phase after the legislation went through Parliament, and the strategy that actually uses these funds in the most effective way to provide users with the boating infrastructure that they need and want.

The BIAV board and staff look forward to working with Franz, and welcome him to the new role.