Aaron Tait

Sometimes when people hear my background they think ‘wait, how old are you, and how did you squeeze all that in?’. If you had the same thought, here’s some nitty gritty stuff.

I was born in 1983 in New Zealand, and spent my childhood and youth in both Auckland and Perth, Australia.

In 2001, joined the Australian Navy at a very young age (I’d turned 17 three months earlier). I joined as a Defence Academy (ADFA) entry officer, with the rank of Midshipman. At the time, the Navy wanted to see if officers like us were worth the investment of the Academy, so would send us to half a year of officer training (NEOC), then half the year at sea. I completed NEOC at Jervis Bay and during this time decided I wanted to pursue the pathway of becoming a Navy Clearance Diver who then worked either at the ‘Teams’. I was enticed by the framing of the branch then as ‘elite’ and ‘specialist’, and it was my understanding that at the time, the way to start on the long and gruelling path of becoming a Clearance Diving Officer and then one day moving into Special Forces teams, was to first do a Ships Divers course. I started Phase 1 of my Seaman Officer (SEEAC) training after NEOC, was then posted to HMAS Sydney for Phase 2, and then pushed to try to do my Ships Divers course. I was sent to this course in September 2001 (Sydney needed Ship Divers) and in the later stages of this course, the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. I received a text message asking me to return to HMAS Sydney (where I was still technically posted) as Sydney had been told it was deploying to the Persian Gulf to relieve units on Operation Damask. While a number of other Midshipman posted to Sydney moved to other units, myself and another Midshipman were told to stay to join the ship’s diving capacity and also to train up in the compliant and non-compliant boarding teams. This is all rather unique and rare for an Officer so young (less rare for non-commisioned sailors) and is not as tough and glamorous as it might sound - Midshipman are commonly referred to as ‘Snotties’ and Ship’s Divers have little to no respect from fully qualified Clearance Divers. I turned 18 as HMAS Sydney moved through its ‘workups’ on the way to the Persian Gulf, Operation Damask became Operation Slipper. At the beginning of the War on Terror, ground units went to Afghanistan and maritime units went to the Persian Gulf, and it’s worth noting that this was two years before the ground mission of the Iraq War 2 began. I was the youngest member of the HMAS Sydney crew, (meaning I had the honour of cutting the Christmas cake with the Captain). In the area of operations, I did plenty of compliant and non-compliant boardings on Iraqi smuggler and cargo vessels coming out of the Khawr Abd Allah waterway, while also completing Phase 2. I then completed ADFA from 2002 – 2004 (with plenty of travel during those years, including six months of leave without pay), then completed the remaining phases of SEEAC and spent the rest of my career (until 2007) on the Mine Hunter Clearance ships HMAS Huon and Norman out of HMAS Waterhen serving as a Seaman Officer, Ships Diver, Communications Officer, and Acting Navigator (I did not do the Navigator course). I never tried for the CDAT/CDOT (the Clearance Diver Acceptance/Officer Test), so I never started the Clearance Diver Officers course, became a Clearance Diver, or serve in any Special Forces Units. I have the upmost respect for those who have. I completed a master’s of Global Strategy and Policy (UNSW) and a master’s of International Development (UNSW) during my time, and left the RAN in 2007 as a Lieutenant with Australian Active Service Medal (Operation Slipper), Afghanistan Medal (I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but these were issued to those who served in Operation Slipper) and the Australian Defence Medal.  

After my time in the military, I moved to East Africa (2007), living initially in Kenya at a community project in the Central Highlands, and then for 2008 I lived and worked in Tanzania at an education project north of Dar es Salaam. In 2009 I returned to Kenya to the same community project.

My book Far Horizons is focused on these years 2001 - 2009.

In 2009/10 I spent a year completing a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) at The University of Cambridge out of the Geography faculty, where my college was Trinity Hall. After Cambridge I returned to Australia to co-found Spark International with my wife Kaitlin, a charity working to support startup entrepreneurs across emerging markets, and in 2015 then merged this organisation with the Australian charity ygap where I became a Director and the Chief Impact Officer. In 2011 I also co-founded the education company Education Changemakers (with Dave Faulkner), which in 2022 we sold to the Australian technology company Go1.

These days home is Byron Bay, I travel a bunch with my family (for all of 2026 in fact), I write, and I do some work with Microsoft and the Australian leadership group ByMany.