Ray Houston was born in Cobar NSW and was raised in inner urban Sydney at Balmain. He worked in the electrical trade for 12 years, the last four in his own electrical contracting business.

It was while working closely with (Mum) Shirley Smith and Professor Fred Hollows with Koori families in regional communities that Ray felt a need for more people centered work and went into nursing in the early seventies. He undertook courses in psychiatric and general nursing studies and worked in that industry for the next twenty years and lead teams in psychiatric, medical and aged care nursing. During this time he attended University of Technology Sydney and attained a master’s degree in management.

Ray left a health management position as manager of neurosciences at St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney to pursue another aspiration; this time to live abroad. He moved to England in the early nineties and owned and ran a sixteenth century Coaching Inn in Somerset for four years. After returning to Australia he went back to mental health nursing in Melbourne where he worked in acute and emergency mental health and then as a Psychiatric Nurse Educator until he moved to Lismore in 2007. His love of Lismore went back thirty years and he visited the area often and ultimately decided to live here in retirement.

Ray is passionate about community service and advocacy and so seeks a position as a councillor at Lismore and looks forward to the opportunity to use his accumulated life and work skills as a “tradie”, a nurse and health manager and teacher, and a small business person to underpin his service to the people of Lismore.

In his spare time he is an avid gardener and reader; he volunteers at the Page federal member’s office and attends U3A.