Student to Jet Boat All-rounder

At the moment my responsibilities are sales, reservations, photography and training to be a back-up driver for the jet boat, which requires 25-hours worth of training. I also own and manage "Operation Nanny" here in Taupo, which I launched in 2020. My clients are mostly local due to the pandemic, but I get a lot of visitors and hope to increase this audience when the world opens back up.

When I was just 14 years old I was lucky enough to get a casual job at Hukafalls Jet, which led to a full-time role when I was 16 doing reservations. I fell in love with the industry as I got to talk as much as I want, be bubbly and I could be myself, so at 17 I went to study Adventure Tourism Management at Queenstown Resort College.

My favourite thing would be working with cool, like-minded people; doing cool stuff in cool places. It's a special industry because no matter what you're making someone happy. There's no better feeling than seeing how happy people are when they get off the jet boat, especially if they were hesitant before.

We normally start the day about 8.30am doing admin work, then get the jet boats ready and bring them to the base building where our customers are prepped for the ride. While I'm training to be a driver I do as much as I can when I can and I do a lot of sales calls and networking around the local industry.

While I was doing my Adventure Tourism Management diploma I was lucky enough to do my internship in Cairns, Australia with an adventure tourism company there. One day I would be helping people onto planes for skydiving, next day I would be loading people onto helicopters... hot air balloons... rafting and snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef... so that was the best experience.

Do it! It's awesome! You do have to work hard and be reliable. No experience is needed as we like to teach people the skills they need on the job. Have a great personality, be a great communicator, be diverse and flexible, definitely be a team player.

I definitely love running Operation Nanny but my heart is with Tourism. I would love to own and operate my own adventure tourism company one day or be a general manager of one.