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Rumour Control provides editorial and consultancy
services to media and defence industry clients.
It was set up by Gregor Ferguson, former editor of Australian
Defence Magazine, Australia's leading monthly defence and
industry title.
Rumour Control is an outlet for Gregor
Ferguson’s
analytical skills and his ability to identify, absorb, integrate
and fuse information from a variety of sources into a single
coherent whole – an article, a briefing paper or a
market survey.
Gregor Ferguson is currently undertaking
a Ph.D at Adelaide University, studying the factors which
enable or prevent
the successful commercialisation of defence-related Intellectual
Property in Australia. This is therefore an area of growing
expertise to which he adds his wide knowledge of defence
acquisition, defence R&D and defence industry in Australia.
Gregor Ferguson - professional and personal
Current employment
I am the editor-at-large of Australian
Defence Magazine (Yaffa Publishing,
Sydney, NSW), Australian correspondent for the respected
US weekly newspaper Defense
News (Army Times Journal Publishing
Co, USA), and a writer specialising in the high-technology
industry sectors: defence, aerospace, environmental management,
and information technology.
And I have been a correspondent for, or contributed
to:
- The Australian (News Ltd, Sydney)
- Australian Defence Community - I was founding editor
of this leading, innovative Australian defence and industry
web site
(Internet Reach Group, Sydney, NSW - defunct since
2001)
- Aerospace Asia-Pacific (Asian Business Press Pte Ltd,
Singapore)
- Commercial Aviation News (Army Times Journal Publishing
Co, USA)
- Pollution Prevention (MacDonald Publishing, USA)
- Waste Management & Environment
(Minnis Business Press, Melbourne)
Before my appointment as editor of ADM in 1998 I worked
as a freelance writer and media consultant for a number of
corporate and government clients in Adelaide and elsewhere:
- Department
of Defence Exports and International Programs Branch (EIP) -
- From 1994 to 1997 I developed an external publications
program for the Defence Exports Branch of the Department
of Defence's acquisition agency, the Defence Materiel
Organisation (DMO), and produced many of the Branch's
external newsletters as well as providing other media
support and Public Relations services, notably for
the two Defence Industry Trade Missions to the UK and
South East Asia in 1997 which were led by then-Minister
for Defence Industry, Science and Personnel, Mrs Bronwyn
Bishop.
- Defence
Science and Technology Organisation,
Edinburgh, South Australia - The Department of Defence's
research
and development arm, with laboratories
at Edinburgh, South Australia; Fishermens Bend, in Melbourne, Victoria;
and Sydney, New South Wales (desktop publishing services
and World Wide Web site
development).
- Innovate SA - I was commissioned by the former South Australian Department
of Industry and Trade (now the
Department of Trade & Economic Development
- DTED) to research and prepare written summaries of significant innovations
by South Australians over the last 160 years for the 'Innovate SA'
exhibition which the Department organised in Adelaide
in August 1995. These included social,
cultural, political, medical, scientific and industrial innovations.
- Tenix Defence
Systems (formerly Vision Abell
Pty Ltd) Adelaide - a defence contractor specialising
in high-technology
systems engineering and signal
processing (newsletter production, 1996-98)
- CSSP Pty
Ltd, Adelaide - a specialist construction
industry software developer (writing conference papers,
media releases and news and feature
articles
- 1991-2000)
- Ross Smith Centenary Committee - In
December 1992 I worked with The Hon Mr John Bannon, MP
for the South
Australian
lower house electorate
of Ross
Smith
and former State Premier, to organise a memorial event at Adelaide
Airport marking the centenary of the birth of the pioneer aviator,
Sir Ross Smith.
This was a Vice-Regal occasion, attended by the Governor of South
Australia, Dame Roma Mitchell, the Heads of the three
armed services in South
Australia, South Australian and Commonwealth parliamentarians
and other South Australian
identities.
Career highlights
In August 1987 I joined British Aerospace Military Aircraft
Ltd (now BAE Systems
PLC) in Kingston-upon-Thames, near London,
as a public relations officer. Over the next three years
I helped maintain the high public profile of what were then
the two largest US-UK joint ventures in the aerospace industry
-- the British Aerospace-Boeing Harrier 'jump jet' fighter
and Hawk/Goshawk jet trainer. My job involved media liaison,
writing media releases, writing articles and writing and
editing brochures and customer magazines.
I was also an early member of the joint British Aerospace/GEC
Marconi bid preparation team seeking to become prime contractor
on the Royal Navy's EH-101Merlin helicopter program.
In 1984 I was appointed editor
of two specialist defence journals, Defence Africa and the
Middle East and Defensa
Latino Americana, which were published by the Argus Press
Group. Over the next three years the circulation and advertising
revenue of both titles doubled. When they were reabsorbed
by their parent title, Defence, in late 1986 I left Argus
Press to spend a few months with Brassey's Defence Publishers
in London as assistant editor of Defence Attache.
In 1980 I joined Marshall
Cavendish Partworks Ltd, a leading London publishing
house, where I learned the craft of journalism and spent
four years on a range of consumer titles, rising to the
rank of Deputy Editor. I specialised in technical areas:
motoring and science & technology.
Background
Born in Scotland and educated at boarding school in Edinburgh,
I spent much of my childhood in Lagos, Nigeria.
I took an honours degree in Industrial Design (Transportation)
at Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry, in the English Midlands
(now Coventry University), then-heart of the British motor
industry. After two years as a trainee designer and project
manager with a small coachbuilding firm, I joined Marshall
Cavendish Partworks Ltd in 1980 to work on a range of automotive
and technical titles. I also joined the British Army's part-time
volunteer reserve, the Territorial Army, at this time to
spend three years as a part-time soldier in The
Parachute Regiment.
In 1991 I emigrated to Australia (I am now an Australian
citizen) where I have been covering the Australian high-technology,
defence and aerospace sectors for a range of newspapers and
magazines both in Australia and overseas.
I have written or co-written three books: "The Paras:
British Airborne Forces, 1940-1984" (Osprey Books, London,
1984), "Coup D'Etat - A Practical Manual" (Arms & Armour
Press, London, 1987) and "Lighting the Fire: A History
of DSTO's Apprentice Training School" (with John Green
- DSTO, Adelaide 1996).
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