IT was a stroke of luck that started Barrack Point's Harry Gooden on his way to the Order of Australia Medal he is receiving as part of this year's Australia Day Honours.
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The 83-year-old has been recognised for his services to the road transport industry, as well as his extensive volunteer work.
Originally from Victoria, Mr Gooden spent numerous years as either the head or member of the executive committee of a number of the state's peak transport bodies.
Before retiring in 2001, Mr Gooden spent time as the president of the Victorian Road Transport Association, chairman of the Victorian Waste Management Association and secretary of the of the Australian Road Transport Suppliers Association.
Mr Gooden was also a VicRoads board member, an inaugural councillor on the Road Transport Forum and a committee member on the Australian Road Transport Industry Organisation.
"I started out as police officer, I did that for seven years and then I spent a bit of time as dairy farmer," he said.
"Then a family in Victoria, the Hilberts, bought out the first front loading garbage truck, myself and another bloke applied to run it and we did that for a while, the other bloke left and I was on my own for a while and it just went from there."
Mr Gooden spent a good portion of his career working to transform waste collection in Victoria.
"It was a difficult process, one of the real challenging things was dealing with the unions, in those days there were three people working on each truck, but as the technology got better it didn't need to be three any more.
"The unions could be quite militant and they didn't want anything that would end up with their members losing out, so it took a lot of work to get the changes through."
After retiring Mr Gooden and his wife Yvonne moved to Barrack Heights, where he has continued to work to improve road conditions.
"Road safety is something that's important and it's something that affects everybody and I've enjoyed trying to make being on the road safer.
"I've been on the Illawarra Road Safety Group since about 2000 and that's been great, we've done hundreds of log book runs to help young people and we've done a lot of work to help elderly people as well.
"I've been involved in Rotary Youth Drive Awareness program for a few years as well and we've sent more than 1500 young people off to speak to police and learn about how to be safer on the roads."
Mr Gooden has also been heavily involved with organisations such as the PCYC and Port Kembla Coastwatch and believes volunteering is something everybody should consider.
"I'd urge anybody to volunteer, there's a lot of organisations out there and they're all doing great things but they need help."
