In the evening of 28 May 2018, at the historical building of UNSW – the Roundhouse, there was the holding of the grand Presentation Ceremony of the Alumni Award 2018. The Award Selection Committee chose from over 300,000 UNSW Alumni to present 11 winners with this year’s Award, including the Premier of NSW, Hon. Gladys Berejiklian, the wife of Prime Minister, Mrs Lucy Turnbull and the Foundation Chairperson and current Honorary Executive Director of CASS, Mr Henry Pan. Amongst the guests attending the Ceremony, there were the Chairperson of CASS, Dr Bo Zhou and his wife, the Chief Operations Manager of CASS, Ms Maria Cheng, and the daughter of Mr Henry Pan, Ms Yander Pan.

In the souvenir publication for the Award Presentation Ceremony, the description on Henry was:

“Henry grew up in his native Singapore and came to Australia to study Mechanical Engineering at UNSW in 1970. He graduated with B.E. (Hons. I) and a University Medal, then returned to Singapore serving compulsory national service before working in standards and industrial testing fields. He then moved back to Australia where, in 1978, he accepted a UNSW Teaching Fellowship, and later worked in the power industry. He has extensive professional experience in business and project management, system planning and development, power market operations and environmental management.

As a volunteer, he founded and developed CASS in 1981, a community services provider offering a wide range of services and activities for people residing in metropolitan Sydney and Wollongong coming from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

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With Henry’s dedication and vision in the delivery, management, and promotion of community service, today more than 2,400 families engage with CASS each week, and its annual turnover exceeds $18 million. He has been the Executive Director of CASS since 2008 on a voluntary basis.

He has served on many Boards of statutory authorities and community organisations, and has also served as a non-judicial member of the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal and an Australia Day Ambassador. He was conferred with an Order of Australia in 1997 and a Centenary Medal in 2001.”

After receiving the Award, while on stage, Henry gave a short speech and he accounted the drive for his longstanding volunteering to his gratefulness to the Australian community for giving him the opportunity to study at UNSW almost half a century ago. He said that since his graduation in 1974, he made a personal pledge that he would dedicate himself to serve the community voluntarily whenever and wherever he could as a way to repay his gratefulness. According to him, this feeling came from the teaching in the Chinese culture his parents taught him since he was a child. He remarked that volunteering was strongly encouraged in the Australian society and hence he had plenty of opportunities to volunteer.

Henry also mentioned that CASS had a good team of dedicated staff members and volunteers, and the collective efforts of members of the CASS Team over a long period of time have resulted in its achievement. He attributed his Award to be belonging to the CASS Team.

For more details about the event, please visit the UNSW link at:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/unswalumni/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2054622108193161