Kevin Burke

Kevin was Nat Map’s initial Aerodist field technician during the 1963, 1964 and 1965 field seasons; albeit constrained by a lack of electronics testing equipment.  His Aerodist field days were spent in New South Wales and Queensland.

Kevin Richard Burke was born at the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton in 1939 and grew up in the northern suburb of Preston.  One of Kevin’s siblings was older brother Ed who worked with Nat Map from 1961 to 1989.  Kevin Burke joined National Mapping as a field assistant on 26 March 1962 after completing an apprenticeship in radio and television with Electronics Industries Ltd and spending a year with the Weapons Research Establishment at Woomera in South Australia.  At WRE, Kevin was a radio technician whose responsibilities included maintaining the transmitters for the radio communication station VL5BW. 

Kevin spent four field seasons with National Mapping where most of his time was with the then Topographic Survey Branch including Aerodist measuring operations.  Kevin’s other field survey activities included spot photography in the Gulf of Carpentaria region with Ted Seton in 1962. 

Also in 1962 Kevin worked with Ted Seton and others on helicopter supported astronomical observations and barometric heighting in the west of South Australia.  Kevin undertook further helicopter supported astro and barometric heighting work in Western Australia with Len Turner and others in 1964.  He was promoted to technical officer grade 1 prior to leaving Nat Map on 1 December 1965. 

Kevin then joined the Army Design Establishment at Maribyrnong and eventually became a senior technical officer grade 1 in the Department of Defence.  Kevin left there in 1975 and moved to New Zealand where he ran a town-based truck carrying operation in Wellington for a few years.  Kevin has been happily settled on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island (north-east of Auckland) since late 1979.  Here Kevin and his wife Gwen raised their daughters Toni and Annette and continue to run the local newspaper; the Barrier Bulletin.

Source : McLean, Lawrence William (2018), The Aerodist Years : Recollections of the Division of National Mapping’s Airborne Distance Measuring Program, 1963-1974.