Michael is an engineer at heart on many different levels. From an infant he loved pulling things apart to see how they work. As a child there were lots of billy-carts, Mechano, cubby houses and electronics sets.
Amongst many other interests, Michael owns an antique firearms dealership located in Perth, Western Australia named 'The Kings Armoury'. Michael began his lifelong interest in target shooting when he was 4 years old. He began collecting firearms upon receiving his first rifle from his father for his 9th birthday. Michael's father worked at the Small Arms Factory (SAF) at Lithgow for 46 years and when Michael was 6 years of age his father took him into the Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum and he was interested in historical firearms from then on. Michael is fascinated by the 'living history' aspect of historical firearms, not to glorify war but rather as a reminder of the sacrifices made and also of what not to do in future moments. As we study and understand the past so are we able to create a future free of the disharmonies of that past. 
Upon leaving school when he was 16 he followed in his Fathers footsteps and commenced a Toolmaking apprenticeship at the Small Arms Factory which included extensive training in all aspects of gun manufacture, design, testing and troubleshhoting. In the 3rd year of his apprenticeship he also commenced training in Mechanical Engineering and he later worked for many years in systems design and process engineering. He worked on many commercial projects as well as on small arms research and development projects. Michael was also involved in troubleshooting rifle manufacturing processes. In 1983 after becoming the Department of Defence Support Apprentice of the Year he was sent to the UK for a year to work at the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield on attachment. All in all Michael worked at the SAF for 15 years then took a redundancy package.
Over the many decades he has competed in all kinds of shooting disciplines from Black Powder to Field Rifle and he has won medals in events at both State and National level.
Michael also has been collecting crystals and mineral specimens since the early 1970's.
The Metaphysical Engineer
As an Engineer on the metaphysical level Michael has manifested the Cosmosis Personal Growth Mentoring Process. Cosmosis is an internal alchemical process for personal growth that enables you to change how you respond to the world. It is all about mastery of Self. This personal growth process changes your personal reactions and feelings about the people and situations in your life, and, instead of simply reacting to life, empowers you to consciously choose how you respond. The process has nothing to do with anyone or anything else, it’s just self meeting self time and time again until you get the message that everything in your environment is a reflection of you, and that your life is your creation. As you change your personal response to the people and situations you have attracted to yourself, your journey through life improves. It is very easy to measure your change because the people and situations pressing your buttons will suddenly appear to be acting differently, and your buttons won’t get pressed in the same way any more. more about Cosmosis here
Michael's other interests and activities include using his skills as an engineer to build and renovate all kinds of objects. He has an extensive machine shop and is able to manufacture pretty much any part required for his antique cars, antique motorcycles and antique guns as required for their restoration and maintenence.
You can view all my classic cars and motorcycles on the Shannons website here
Electric vehicle conversion
One of Michael's recent engineering projects was the conversion of his 1976 Triumph Stag to an electric vehicle. The technology now is such that it is a very viable proposition. We achieved about a 150km range per charge with a top speed of about 130km/hr. Even charging on dirty power from coal fired power stations the CO2 emmissions will be well less than 10% of a petrol vehicle and the batteries used will not be the rare earth ones used in Hybrid vehicles which put more CO2 into the atmosphere being made than you save in the life of the vehicle. We will be using the latest Li-Ion batteries.
We hope to have the project completed by the middle of 2012. Click here for the whole story of this project.
Click here to learn about our Cosmosis Personal Growth Mentoring
You can read about Michael's Mentoring Philosophy here
You can learn more about the Cosmosis process here
You can read Michael's articles here
Click here to learn more about how Cosmosis works
Want to get started or learn more? Click here
