When most people think about the people who run buses across the Northern Territory, they don’t imagine their past lives involved cooking for celebrities.
But for Glenn Neaves, CDC NT’s Senior Charter Admin, it did.
Before he was coordinating fleets of buses and moving thousands of passengers, Glenn spent 30 years in kitchens, restaurants, food production companies and private dining.
Along the way, he cooked for Elton John, served steaks to Shane Warne and helped run weddings with hundreds of guests.
“I always had an interest in and enjoyed working with food,” Glenn said. “Even when I was young I learnt things with my mum. Cooking’s always something I get a lot of enjoyment out of.”
A serious fall and broken back forced him to step away from long hours in commercial kitchens. “I could still cook, but not for the long, punishing hours the industry demands,” he said.
Glenn had another skill he could fall back on: driving. He’d held a heavy vehicle licence since the mid-1980s, and when an opportunity came up with Buslink Vivo he took it. From there, he moved to Buslink which later became CDC Northern Territory, working his way from driver to supervisor.
It was during his time in supervision that Glenn discovered a new passion: organising charters.
“Then I got into charters. For me it’s not dissimilar to hospitality — selling to clients, looking for a particular product. Same but different. I find it quite enjoyable,” he said.
By late 2022, he stepped into running CDC NT’s charter department, planning bus allocations, scheduling fleets and making sure every charter operation ran smoothly.
Glenn takes his work personally.
“I’ve grown into the role and it’s grown with me,” he said. “It’s something that I take a lot of personal pride in. Some people say I take it too personally, but I think you have to have a vested interest to sell a product. I feel very proud of what we’re doing with our drivers and the team and I think it’s a good thing for people to think about us as a company as well.”
Even small moments can make a big difference.
After taking a group of primary school kids to a show at the Darwin Entertainment Centre, he told them his bus was “deaf” and needed them to shout “Open Sesame!” to open the doors.
Forty kids shouted and the doors opened. “Oh my god, magic bus,” the kids said. They even made him a poster.
It’s not only the kids who are pleased with his performance though, with Ventia Transport Supervisor Mark Black, who worked with Glenn during Exercise Talisman Sabre, describing Glenn and his team as “very competent and considerate”.
“I really felt like I was their customer, but they were there to ensure my customers were well looked after. The drivers took initiative where required and ensured the highest service standards were maintained and even in some cases exceeded.”
Over the past year, Glenn has overseen some of the Top End’s largest operations, including:
- Talisman Sabre 2025 — 8 coaches, twice daily for five weeks, transporting military personnel.
- Pitch Black at RAAF Base Darwin — orchestrating 30 buses to move 27,000 people at a large-scale military open day event.
“I love the challenge,” he said. “It’s a constantly changing environment. There’s a lot of potential in charters and I’m excited to see where we can take it.”
He said CDC was the biggest company he’d worked for and it had been an interesting learning curve coming into a major corporate entity.
“I really enjoy the challenge of where I’m at now. I’ve got a good relationship with my manager and a good group of people in the office. Having people above you of that calibre is very important and being able to talk to them one-on-one on a day-to-day basis is great,” he said.
Glenn still cooks at home, specialising in seafood, game birds, venison and buffalo. He’s started baking sourdough, naming his starter Hannibal Lecter and has a long history in competitive sailing.
He’s just turned 63, but he isn’t slowing down and isn’t planning on retiring any time soon.
“There’s still a lot of potential in charters. I want to see where we can take it,” he said.
