He hears the roller door shut behind him and St Augustine’s Year 12 student Vic Lorusso is at once excited and terrified.
He is entering the 2GB 873 building carpark, following in a Land Cruiser which had just unlocked the roller door. It’s after midnight on a Friday and Vic is walking towards Wynyard following a friend’s 18th Birthday dinner at Chinatown’s Golden Sanctuary.
As he descends to the garage, he thinks to himself ‘what am I doing’. The driver gets out of his car and is startled by the sight of a young man in a lonely carpark. “Can I help you mate?” he asks.
Vic blurts out “I’m… I’m here for work experience.”
“Oh, I work at the station,” the fellow says, relieved at the stranger’s innocent intentions. “I’ll take you up.”
Vic is handed to a producer who knows nothing about the arrival of a work experience person, particularly one after midnight on a Friday!
For the first hour at 2GB he sits quietly in a corner petrified, thinking his ruse is about to come unstuck. When nothing happens he gets proactive and starts to make teas and coffees. Within about three hours he befriends everyone.
Vic goes there every weekend for the next six months. Until one day the program manager calls him into his office. “He is staring at his computer screen, typing, and repeating my name ‘Vic, Vic, Vic’. Then he says: ‘We both know you’re not meant to be here’.”
Caught. His ‘work experience’ comes to a sudden halt but the seeds are sown. Vic is given the number for a company that has recently begun doing air traffic reporting. He calls the next day and gets a gig.
“We fly a Cessna 172 out of Bankstown,” he says. “That’s how it starts.”
This is the beginning of a career with Australian Traffic Network (now atn) which will eventually see Vic embrace the upper-echelons of the corporate world.
Most would have heard his voice in our media, even if not exactly sure who the speaker is. His prophetic words about traffic-flow and points-of-congestion can either instill calm or caution in Sydney commuters. ‘Prophetic’ in the sense that without these words, you might end up choking in traffic chaos … in the future.
What many might not know is that this traffic sage is also the CEO of GTN – the Global Traffic Network. As well as Australia, the ASX-listed organisation has offices in Brazil, Canada and the UK. And yet, the head of this international business also drops onto our airwaves each weekday.
“I think there is trust-value in people hearing the same voice each day,” he says. “Particularly on radio. It really is trust-recognition.”
We meet in North Sydney. Vic has a confident swagger, is polite and eminently engaging. We sit down for a chat over a couple of tiny coffees. They might be intense but the conversation is not.
His first foray into media is with Radio Northern Beaches, doing a show called Sports Hour. “But it might as well be Manly Rugby League Hour,” he says, admitting he is a Manly tragic.
“I really want to be a rugby league caller. I idolise some of the greats like Zorba (Peter Peters). I even get some lessons from (voice-over luminary) Grant Goldman – announcer for Brookvale Oval, Sydney Trains and the Olympics.”
Vic eventually applies to every radio station in Sydney, despite being repeatedly told his voice is ‘too young for radio’. It’s not long after this that the carpark incident occurs.
Vic’s work ethic is undeniable. Days begin at 3am and finish well into the evening. So how does he still manage to be a devoted husband and dad to four children, a CEO, an auctioneer (he’s been one for 20 years), and a charity event host?
“There’s not much spare time,” he says. “When I’m not working I spend it with my family. But even then I can’t sit still. Always walking or running. Except when Manly is playing. Then I will just sit on the couch.
Vic is married to Katie. Their children are Nicholas, Annabella, Vito and Arianna. Plus Roxy the cavoodle.They are bright lights in his life and he beams with pride when talking about them. He tells of how each of the children is respectful and humble in their different fields of interest. “My kids are becoming amazing people,” he says.
Notably, 10-year-old Arianna is setting stages alight, recently scoring leading roles in two professional musicals productions: Annie and Anastasia. He shakes his head as to where her singing talent comes from.
He grows up in Collaroy, the son of Italian parents who travel to Australia from Bari in the south of Italy, when they were both young children. Unbeknown to them until after some decades of marriage, they were on the same boat!
Life deals Vic some blows. Between 1997 and 1999 he wears a back brace 23 hours-a-day to correct curvature in his spine. His passion for tennis suffers. “I play juniors at Narrabeen Sports and at Collaroy/Terrey Hills with Kim Warwick. The amount of tennis I play accelerates the injury.”
But he keeps going; a relentless enthusiasm. “It’s something I tell my kids,” he says. “Just don’t give up.”
“I can’t sit still. Always walking or running. Except when Manly is playing. Then I will just sit on the couch.”
Vic doesn’t believe education is the be-all-and-end-all, and puts a lot of his success down to striving and working solidly. “It’s hard to believe a kid who just scraped through his HSC is now head of an ASX-listed company,” he says. “I’ve nothing against university but from a corporate point of view, I’m a living example that tertiary education isn’t everything.”
He is grateful for the last 26 years in the industry. Vic says AI is one element making the traffic-reporting business a rapidly changing space:
“But all the new road infrastructure around Sydney means we are even more relevant.”
While he likes to envisage what the future will be like, he can’t imagine one when he is not working – doing what he loves.
“I try to stay active,” he says. “I do light weight training most mornings. To feel right for the day.
“I don’t ever want to be self-centred. I’m driven by those around me. But it’s good to lead by example.
“The moment I’m not enjoying my work is the day I start taking many more walks around Long Reef Headland.”
