Nelson and wife Barbara moved from Melbourne 18months ago to live in Lorne, to semi retire and be nearer the family with daughter Kate, son Sam and 3 grandchildren.
Both Barbara and Nelson are “one career” people, with Barbara who always worked in the medical field and Nelson, always an advertising man.
Nelson’s career in advertising was mainly with advertising agencies in Melbourne where he worked with ad agencies who produced TV ads, radio commercials and newspaper ads for a wide range of clients including banks, car manufacturers, government departments and many large retailers. Nelson travelled regularly to most areas of Australia to manage advertising campaigns and on many occasions, wrote and directed TV commercials. He also travelled overseas to gain knowledge and one memorable visit was to the world famous home of advertising agencies, Madison Avenue, New York.
Later in his career, Nelson became an advertising executive with Fairfax Media and worked on advertising for The Age and The Weekly Review.
To be successful person in the advertising profession, Nelson said the secrets are to be creative, be a good salesman, gain an understanding of the client’s business and the client’s customers and be slightly crazy!
Nelson is a member of The Lorne Lions Club, The Lorne Bowls Club and The Lorne Men’s Shed, is a keen fisherman and likes classic cars. Barbara is currently too busy looking after grandchildren and the garden to join in any reindeer games.
Not long after coming to Lorne to live, Barbara and Nelson’s daughter’s house burned down in the Wye River/Separation Creek bush fires on Christmas Day 2015. This was a traumatic event for the whole family including daughter Kate, Kate’s husband Ben and Annie aged 3. Some say it was fortunate Kate’s
parents Barbara and Nelson were living in Lorne at the time and could help with accommodation and rebuilding their lives, but nothing is fortunate when you lose everything in such a terrible way. They
are now going through the slow and agonising process of rebuilding and all going well, will be in their new home early 2017.
Lorne is an amazing place to live and whilst Barbara and Nelson have only lived in Lorne for 18 months, they have made many new friends and enjoy the strong community spirit which is so much a part of the Surf Coast.
