Okill, managing director of the Sydney-based print management company, listened to the talk from Lauren Rowe at a Melbourne Cup fundraiser organised by construction company FDC, which built PMA Solutions’ facility in Erskine Park.

“That young girl, Lauren, had such a story to impart: about her 21 years and the amount of time she had spent in hospital and what she had gone through,” said Okill.

“Before she gave the talk, I was not fully aware of what cystic fibrosis was all about… so it was quite eye opening.”

At the event at Doltone House, Pyrmont, Okill was joined by other industry leaders Paul Freeman, managing director of Central Coast-based print manager E-Bisprint, Arthur Frost from Lamson Paragon and his son, Rodney Frost, chief executive of Cheque-Mates.

The two printing industry tables all backed Dunaden, which went on to win the famous race by a nose.

Okill’s snap decision to donate $10,000 to the cystic fibrosis unit at Sydney Children’s Hospital continued a long track record of charitable giving at PMA.

For six years, the firm organised Melbourne Cup functions at the Westin Hotel in Sydney, rasing over $300,000 for the Cancer Council, with money directed toward children with cancer.

Since taking a break form running its own Melbourne Cup event, PMA has donated to a range of charities including the Children’s Hospital at Westmead last year and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation the year before.

Okill, who has a grown-up son and daughter and one grandchild, agreed that donating to children’s charities had been a running theme at PMA. “It pulls at the heart strings.”

Pictured: Lauren Rowe, Phil Okill and Dr John Morton, Head of Respiratory Medicine at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick

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