Agency celebrates long-serving administrator

HELEN Rae walked through Booth & Lee’s Lydiard Street doors in 1990 as a work experience student with Loreto Commercial College.

In January of the next year, she started a traineeship with new real estate agency, and never looked back.

Currently company administrator, Ms Rae is marking 31 years since she joined the business – now Ray White Ballarat – and is their longest-serving employee.

“It was only a very small business in 1991, with Trevor Booth and Phillip Lee, and two other people in administration, and sales,” she said.

“I was initially a receptionist, after 12 months that changed into an administration position, and over the years I became administration manager, and more recently, company administrator, making sure day-to-day business operations run smoothly.

“I love working with numbers and do a lot of accounting work.”

Over the three decades, some things have stayed the same, like the agency’s location, but Ms Rae’s seen huge changes in other areas, especially technology.

“Booth & Lee was the first real estate agency in Ballarat with dial-up internet.

“We were able to list properties online, but we didn’t have the technology to put photos up, so we used to have to stick photos on a piece of paper and send them down to Melbourne,” she said.

“When I first started, car phones were big bricks, and they were special because not everyone had those. People had to ring the office to speak to someone because they weren’t readily available.”

Ms Rae enjoys her work, which balances nicely with raising her children, the chance to support young staff members as they launch their career, and loves playing a role in helping the agency’s customers enter the real estate market.

“It’s such a happy time for most people.”

She said current Ray White Ballarat directors Mr Booth and Mr Lee are “fantastic” professional leaders and colleagues, which she shares a mutual respect with.

“We very much believe in traineeships for young people, and Helen was our first-ever trainee,” Mr Lee said.

“Helen has been a very hardworking, loyal, trustworthy and accurate employee. She has a huge responsibility, but is very much trusted with anything in the business, from money management and pay roll, to company administration.

“After 30 years, she would have the best understanding about how everything in our business runs. It’s been a great business relationship so far and we’re very appreciative of her past and ongoing contribution.”