Dick Guit, the son of Dutch migrants and Second World War resistance fighters, is a man who likes to get things done. 

He has played a pivotal role in the economic development of the Northern Territory for 50 years. 

His understanding of the construction industry – combined with his interpersonal skills and recognition that time and budget are king in the big project business – are probably unparalleled in Northern Australia. 

“I’ve been driven by getting results all my life,” he says. 

Dick supposedly retired in 2017 but is still involved with five organisations, including being chair of the Industry Capability Network, chair of the Fidelity Fund NT, a member of the Charles Darwin University Council and a member of the NT Strategic Defence Advisory Group. 

And he has just returned from Honolulu where he met US Defense leaders – some of them retired generals and admirals – to argue that Territory companies have the capability to do much of the multi-billion-dollar defence work planned for the Top End. 

“I’m a failed retiree.” 

Dick has a glittering CV – he worked for Barclay Mowlem/Laing O’Rourke for 18 years, 16 of them as NT manager, and then became general manager of Darwin-based construction company Sitzler for five years. 

He has worked on most of Northern Australia’s major projects, including the Alice Springs to Darwin railway, the building of Darwin Port, the $3.5 billion Gove alumina plant expansion, the $250 million Darwin Waterfront, and several defence developments in Darwin and at RAAF Tindal in Katherine. 

But it is a relatively small, quirky project that he remembers with the most affectionate: developing the Alice Springs Desert Park. 

Dick and his school teacher wife Marg moved from Darwin to Alice for 18 months for the job. 

“We couldn’t find a project director, so I said, ‘I’ll do it’. It was a unique project. I knew nothing about it, so I learnt on the run.” 

The development included creating a dune with 85,000 cubic metres of sand. 

“Believe it or not, there wasn’t enough sand nearby so we bought a sand dune from a cattle station and hauled it to Alice.” 

His most challenging project was building the port at East Arm – “it was very difficult and turned out to be very expensive”. 

Dick was born in Holland. His father, a tailor by trade, forged documents for Jews during the Nazi occupation. 

“All ID documents were the same except those for Jews bore a large J. If Jews were caught they were shipped off to concentration camps to be murdered.” 

His mother Martha often carried a pistol in her handbag during the war. 

“She was the most unassuming woman – a home-builder all her life – but she worked for the resistance during the war and carried a gun. Incredible.” 

The Guits emigrated to Australia soon after the war when Dick was a toddler. 

“They applied to emigrate to South Africa and Australia. Luckily, the Australian permission arrived first.” 

Dick went to state schools in Brisbane and then technical college before joining Barclay Mowlem. 

He was posted to Papua New Guinea at the age of 22 – not long after marrying his wife Marg – and ended up staying there for six years. 

The couple moved to Darwin for 12 months. That was 50 years ago this year. 

Marg became principal of Holy Family and then St Francis of Assisi primary schools. 

Their son Richard is a senior lawyer in Singapore but their daughter Monica still lives in Darwin. 

Dick lives on a four-hectare property in Virginia. He’s still talking about retiring. TQ