Introducing Devin Rawlinson

[Left] Devin with Eva Longoria who he met while working at AJ Hackett Bungy! [Right] Devin at Niagra Falls.

Back in 1994, I was a little 12-year-old boy shaking with excitement and adrenaline after completing my first bungy jump. This was followed by jetboating, white water rafting, canyoning, abseiling, snowboarding, and the list goes on. The foundation of my tourism career had begun.

I was born in Tunis, Tunisia (famous for being the location of Tatooine from Star Wars). At the age of one, I moved to New Zealand and grew up on the Kapiti Coast. From there, I moved to Singapore for two years. In the second year I was in Singapore, the government banned chewing gum, so we had to get our grandparents to smuggle packs into the country! We then headed back to NZ and settled in Auckland.

I have dual citizenship (Canadian and NZ) so my next port of call was Calgary, Canada, where I saw my first of many beavers. Within my first month, I had seen bears, coyotes, deer, elk, and moose – all in the wild. Every weekend I was either playing golf or snowboarding, depending if there was snow or not. I learned how to ice skate, attended lots of Calgary Flames (NHL) games and developed a love of rodeo, cowboy hats, and poutine (fries, cheese and gravy). When I finished school and turned 18, I jumped on a plane and came back to Auckland.

My career in travel and tourism began with AJ Hackett Bungy NZ, working on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. I trained up and became a Jump Master, then Operations Manager. Over ten years, I got to meet many fun and famous people. When we were told that some young kid called Justin Bieber was on his way, we had to Google to see who he was!

After leaving AJ Hackett, I worked for Schindler Lifts as their National Health and Safety Manager. A major part of my role was to deliver training throughout New Zealand. I was fortunate to go to France every year with this job, since the corporate health and safety team was based there.

I now live on Waiheke Island with my wife, three kids, two cats, and a dog. When I’m not playing with the kids, changing diapers or watching those YouTube videos made for kids, I like listening to music, playing guitar or spending the day at the beach.