Profile - Jim Copeland

What are your strongest memories of NSBHS?
Our year's obsession with sport and the art of sarcasm.
Paddy's reign of terror.
NSBH winning chess and debating vs Melbourne High (ie losing everything else!) and them swaying in time on the stage behind, and out of sight of, the "official party" as we sang "Soars the Falcon".

Summarise briefly your life since school
After year 12, Owen Gan and I worked in a the life savers factory near his house in Lane Cove West. Then everyone went to Uni, but I wasn't ready, so I went to Western Australia, and worked on a sheep station north of Kalgoorlie for a year. Then Chris White persuaded me that Sydney Uni was better than New South, so I went there, joined the Athletics Club, and studied geology and law. By this time, it was 1995. I saw Phil Boas one night at the Greenwood, and we organised the NSBH 1987 10th year reunion, which may not have been all that well publicised beyond that night. After that I went back to the sheep station in Kalgoorlie. Then I got a job working as a geologist at an underground gold mine just south of Kalgoorlie for a couple of years, and played rugby for the WA School of Mines (there were only 4 teams in town, but we still only won one game in 2 years). The bright lights beckoned, so I went to Perth, and worked as a very junior solicitor for Clayton Utz, mostly mining related stuff (ok, I was in a room full of old documents most of the time). Which was pretty much where I thought I'd stay until a bloke from an America investment bank got my name through a mate of a mate (yep, Owen Gan), and wanted someone with no financial experience to help him out analysing gold companies. So in 1999 I took the chance, and went to New York, where I found Pak Chwee Yeoh, Curtis Smith and Luke Tristram eking out an existence. I was there until last year, and I came home. After the last 10 months of soul searching, reading Tom Allard in the Sydney Morning Herald, seeing Dan Wylie on TV, and catching up with Chris White, Trent Allen, Benny Teh, Tony Robinson, Curtis Smith, even calling Wayland Gock from Ben's phone, I am only now just back in WA, in Perth, working for Macquarie Bank and playing rugby again for the first time in 4 years, trying to anyway. I'm looking forward to the reunion. Go the mighty Bears!

Who are the most important people in your life today?
Mates