The Quiet Hero You'll Never See

If you’ve ever been to Riverfire, New Year’s Eve in the city, or any major Brisbane event, you’ve probably seen SES volunteers in orange helping Queensland Police Service (QPS) manage crowds and keep people safe. What most people don’t realise is that behind those volunteers is someone like Sven; a field commander quietly coordinating the SES preparation and response for scenarios most of us would rather not imagine.

And if you ask him about it, he’ll downplay the whole thing.

He'd probably say "I don't do much...." and then point to someone else or make a joke using his dry, understated sense of humour that slips into conversations almost unnoticed, until you realise he's the funniest person in the room!

The irony is that Sven is known by his peers as one of the most effective connectors in Brisbane SES, someone who brings people together, builds capability, and gets things done without ever seeking recognition.

A quiet achiever, who never takes himself too seriously and has a great sense of humour.

Sven joined Brisbane SES in 2009. Not long after, he became one of the first SES volunteers in the region to complete the QPS Search and Rescue (SAR) course, a program usually reserved for police.

The experience opened his eyes to a gap that few had noticed.

“One thing I learned is that many people in QPS have no idea what we do, what we can do, or how we operate. And a lot of them really struggle with navigation: bearings, compass work, references. It makes search and rescue operations hard.”

So, he tried something different:Embed SES volunteers inside QPS command as proper liaisons, not just as field teams.People who could advise, navigate, log‑keep, and bridge the operational divide.

For a moment, it looked promising.Then came the resistance - from both sides.

“It had legs for a little bit, and then it fell apart. It seems to be a consistent pattern. Organisationally, it’s quite hard to make progress. Things just… block, block, block.”

But Sven didn’t quit, he was committed to building capability anyway.

He developed SAR team leader training.He helped shape field commander training.He wrote manuals - for lighting towers, cranes, equipment setups.He helped build the C‑Trailer, one of the few enduring legacies from that era.

When his original group changed leadership and the culture shifted, he moved into Operations, where he found new ways to contribute.

“I got involved in a lot of maintenance, a lot of setting up. All the equipment-type things. And I did a lot of the big events: River fire, New Year’s Eve.  I got heavily involved in both the preparation and the field commander roles.”

Harnessing Capability and the Leadership Gap

What frustrates Sven most isn’t the long hours, the logistics, or even the pressure of major events. It’s the wasted potential!

“Our unit has so many people with incredible capability: decades of experience, specialist skills, deep operational knowledge. And most of it is under‑utilised. Not intentionally… just because the system doesn’t really know how to tap into it.”

He’s careful with his words, but the truth is clear:The gap isn’t in the volunteers.It is in the leadership model.

“At the unit level, we often operate in this space of unconscious incompetence. Leaders don’t know what they don’t know - about operations, about people, about capability. And because they don’t know, they can’t see what’s right in front of them.”

It’s a quiet but persistent tension: the difference between how capability is harnessed in business, where skills are mapped, developed, and deployed, and how it plays out in volunteer emergency services, where leadership roles are often filled by availability rather than aptitude.

A volunteer might also be a lawyer, carpenter, or teacher, but the system assumes that they are ‘just a volunteer’, a blank canvas that must be taught, and so the skills and experience that sit behind each volunteer are ignored.

In business, you’d never ignore the capability sitting in your team. In volunteering, it happens all the time. Not because people don’t care, but because the system isn’t built to recognise or leverage it.

For Sven, that’s the real challenge:not the crowds, not the weather, not the logistics…but watching good people with real skill go unseen, under‑used, or unsupported.

And still showing up anyway.

The Weight of Responsibility

People often assume that volunteering is fun and carefree.  The first part is true, it is fun! But there is a serious and impactful side that is not always seen.

“The hardest thing is trying to please everyone: group leaders, team leaders, and team members. When you’re working with information you only get a week beforehand from QPS. Parking, weather, logistics… all of it.”

And then there are the human challenges...

He recalls one volunteer who had multiple complaints raised about his behaviour.

“He was a bit over the top: bossy, assertive, loud. And it was probably mostly true. But dealing with that was honestly the hardest thing I did. Harder than managing 20,000 people after an event. Harder than coordinating with QPS when they don’t take charge as much as they should.”

Because behind every orange uniform is a person: with strengths, blind spots, and emotions.

“It's very natural for us to think that the person next to us has all the same skills, aptitudes, capabilities and experiences as us, but they just don't. Sometimes they’ve got more, sometimes less. As volunteers, it’s assumed we’re capable of everything. And then surprise, surprise,  something happens and we’re not well equipped to deal with it.”

He pauses.

“We just muddle along, doing the best we can. Sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes we can’t sleep at night because we’re worried about what could happen, or what has happened, and whether we did it wrong or could have done better.”

The Quiet Heroism of Showing Up

Sven would never call himself a hero.

But he is the kind of volunteer who keeps the SES running: the kind who builds capability, strengthens systems, and shoulders responsibility so others can focus on the task at hand.

He’s the person tucked away in a control centre on New Year’s Eve thinking:

“What happens if…?”And then making sure that if it does, his people are ready.

That’s the kind of volunteer who rarely gets seen.

Brisbane’s biggest events run smoothly not because everything goes right, but because people like Sven spend months preparing for the things that might go wrong.

He’ll never ask for credit. He’ll never stand in the spotlight.

But if you’ve ever felt safe walking through a crowd of 100,000 people on New Year’s Eve, chances are you’ve felt the quiet impact of someone like him.