McCusker Centre for Citizenship’s Outstanding Intern Award accepted by Narrogin bank employee Tom Mackay

A newly-recruited Narrogin NAB employee has received one of the highest internship honours for his outstanding road safety education work last summer. University of WA Bachelor of Commerce graduate Tom Mackay returned to campus on October 14 to accept the McCusker Centre for Citizenship’s Outstanding Intern Award. Presented by McCusker Charitable Foundation directors Malcolm McCusker and judge Denis Reynolds, Mr Mackay was one of eight intern award winners selected from more than 140 UWA student nominees. Mr Mackay had spent his 2024-25 summer developing the Road Safety Commission’s Road Smart KickStart road safety education program for WA secondary schools, engaging with students at Narembeen and Kulin district high schools trialling the program. Mr Mackay said it was a great privilege to be acknowledged with the award and was grateful to be part of the program’s process. “After gaining invaluable experience with Simone Steele and the RSC team, along with putting into practice what I learnt at UWA, being recognised for this hard work is really rewarding,” he said. “My internship played a large part in giving me the experience and confidence to secure a graduate role with NAB, and to quickly apply for and move into my current customer loans solutions role in Narrogin. “It also gave me a broader understanding of the work done behind the scenes by the RSC has an impact for all of us as road users. I’m really grateful to have been part of this process. “Seeing the Road Smart KickStart program fully rolled out has been great to follow and rewarding after my work with the pilot for the program.” Director, education and behaviour change at RSC Simone Steele said Mr Mackay had exceeded their expectations, approaching every challenge with enthusiasm and connecting with the students. “Tom’s work on the program’s evaluation was an incredibly valuable contribution,” she said. “His approach was engaging, person-centred, and age-appropriate and enabled the education and behaviour change team to collect valuable data on student risks, attitudes and beliefs on road safety. “A contractor had been engaged to provide this element of the project, however, Tom’s evaluation approach was deemed a better fit for purpose with the target audience.”