John Mistilis – we salute you!

Over recent years we have been privileged to help our client John Mistilis with his transition to retirement planning. After a lifetime of dedication to children’s education, John has recently retired and we would like to share with you a brief summary of his outstanding career.

As a young man, John studied at what was then Claremont Teachers College and commenced his career at Balcatta Primary School in 1965 teaching Year 4s. After one year in that position, John was called into National Service at the time of the Vietnam War. On his return to teaching John resumed at Balcatta Primary School teaching year 4s and year 7s.

In 1975 John was appointed as Principal at Pingelly Primary School, and then moved to Principal at Newman Primary School in 1977 which had over 700 students. After one year in that role he moved to Port Hedland Primary School where he stayed for 3 years.

The Smith family met John when he was the founding Principal at Illawarra Primary School, where Brad and Darryn Smith first went to primary school. It was a terrific school and with John at the helm Brad and Darryn have many happy memories of their time there. John moved to City Beach Primary as Principal in 1985 before being appointed to Morley Primary School in 1990, where he stayed for three years. John was then Principal at Beldon for a staggering 14 years, before being promoted to run Rawlinson Primary in Marangaroo in 2004 (720 students), where he worked until his retirement a few weeks ago. The length of time John was Principal at Beldon and Rawlinson Primary Schools (27 years) shows in what high regard John was held by the parents, students and staff of those schools.

Now retired John is looking forward to doing a lot of things that his dedication to youth education has not enabled him to do during his working life. John would like to travel more, and he will now have the time to visit his daughter, son in law and grandchildren in the USA.

John’s amazing career was based on his passion for working with and helping people, and making a difference in the community. From the personal experience of the Smith family we know just what a brilliant job he did!

We would all like to wish John a very happy, healthy and rewarding retirement.