The sad news of Kevin’s passing was received from Neil Hemington via Andrew Jones and Rod Pernich.
It is with great sadness that we have learnt of the passing of a former colleague from PITC Gnangara, Kevin Hills.
Kevin was first employed by OTC as a Technical Officer at the Gnangara Coast Radio Station Perth in the 1980s, he later became involved with the AIS cable and in the early 90s transferred to the OTC International DMS300 telephone exchange section at PITC and later became part of the Satellite services team at PITC.
Kevin was primarily the international cable guy for those of us who worked with him. He was lead responsible for the JASURAUS cable in Port Hedland, the AIS cable here at Gnangara, the SMW3 cable out of Pier St Telephone exchange and more recently part of the team that worked on the Indigo cable installation project in Wellington Telephone exchange. Amongst other things Kevin was also an integral part of the USOSAT platform, the OTC international DMS300 telephone exchange and was involved with the coastal radio services out of the Maritime building earlier in his career. A career at Gnangara that spanned over 3 decades.
Following his recent discovery of cruise ships Kevin would take every opportunity to travel and rack up frequent flyer miles on the QE2 or some other exotic vessel that took his fancy.
Kevin retired in 2018 and COVID brought his travel plans to a temporary halt. Once the boarders reopened, back on the road he went. One of his last trips was to Tasmania with his family where he fell ill in early 2023 and rushed home to the diagnosis that he had Lymphoma.
After a long battle with his illness and what was almost daily trips to the hospital for treatment he finally passed earlier today.
Kevin was a great mentor to all the staff here in Gnangara and would show great patience in assisting his junior staff members develop their craft. He was a true gentleman and was well liked by all who worked with him and never a bad word was to be said about Uncle Kev.
You will be greatly missed.
RIP
The below photo is of Kevin alongside Maud Edmiston, founder and original owner of the Miss Maud Hotel / Restaurant and Miss Maud Café chain. On his weekly trip to conduct SMW3 cable routines you could always catch Kevin at Miss Maud’s in Pier Street at 10am on a Wednesday, like clockwork. The local staff would yell “Large mocha, Extra hot, Fruit flan” when he entered the café. They knew his order, and he didn’t need to verbalize it. It would be a disaster if he turned up late at morno to a sold-out cabinet of fruit flans.
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