Bendigo's Christopher Stoltz was feeling all of those things, upon learning he was being appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.

Mr Stoltz was recognised for significant service to engineering, as well as to charitable and emergency medical organisations.

"It was a bit of a surprise, out of the blue," he said.

"But, you know, I probably haven't stopped smiling since. It's nice to be acknowledged."

Mr Stoltz said he was "busy beavering away on the computer and flat out working," the day he got the email.

He thought to himself: "That's an unusual email address. I wonder what that is.

"Not everybody's got an address that says Governor-General."

He is passionate about the Royal Flying Doctor Service and Sacred Heart Mission, two of the causes he was recognised for.

Mr Stoltz has held a number of roles since becoming involved with the RFDS, including being co-chair of the Emeritus Council since 2017.

He was previously president of RFDS Victoria, director of RFDS western operations, a national councillor, and chair of the Friends of the Australian Flying Doctor (USA).

"It sounds cliche, I know, but often the more you give, the more you get back, and with the Royal Flying Doctors I got to do things and see things I would never have got the opportunity to otherwise," Mr Stoltz said.

His involvement in the RFDS had taken him to outback places in Queensland and Western Australia.

"I'm lucky, I've had very supportive close family and friends," Mr Stoltz said.

"You don't get the opportunity to go off and do things if you haven't got the support of the family."

He is also a Sacred Heart Mission ambassador, as well as being its chair and a trustee of the Sacred Heart Mission Foundation.

His involvement in that organisation again highlighted the importance of strong family supports, with Mr Stoltz citing family breakdown as a risk factor for homelessness.

"It's not that you wake up one day and, 'Oh my gosh, I've had some bad luck and I'm now homeless,'" he said.

"It's actually a whole sequence of events that leads there, and it often starts with family break down of some sort."

He said social housing was only part of the action needed to address homelessness in Australia.

"There's a whole lot of other things that have to happen before that to stop so many people needing social housing," Mr Stoltz said.

"And then after you find a home for somebody you've still got to help them get back up on their feet."

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He believed his engineering mind had helped in his work with both Sacred Heart Mission and RFDS.

"I'm outcome focused - I like to be doing things where you can see an outcome at the end of the day, or at least you know what the outcome is you're wanting," Mr Stoltz said.

Engineering wasn't the vocation Mr Stoltz initially envisaged himself pursuing.

He grew up on a dairy farm and saw himself staying on the land.

Mr Stoltz pursued engineering at the suggestion of one of his teachers, who had spoken with his mum.

"I didn't want to go to Melbourne to do engineering, so I came to Bendigo," he said.

"I was 16 when I came here and did engineering here, and then I graduated and went to Melbourne and worked for a couple of years."

He got invited back to La Trobe to give a guest lecture.

Impressed by his presentation, the university offered Mr Stoltz the opportunity to teach and help rewrite the syllabus for surveying and stress analysis of structures.

Use of computers was rapidly increasing at the time - a marked change from when Mr Stoltz was studying.

"We didn't even have calculators, we had slide rules" he said.

"Then calculators came in, and rapidly after that computers came in.

"In my final year I did a project using computers, but computers were not generally being used then."

When the computer department found out Mr Stoltz knew a bit about computer programming, he was offered further teaching opportunities.

"There are a lot of people in Bendigo who I taught," he said.

He lectured at La Trobe for nine years before starting his own business, consulting.

La Trobe University made Mr Stoltz an honorary professor of practice in engineering in 2019.

He has chaired the university's engineering industry course advisory committee since 2016, and sat on the university's regional board for four years.

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Mr Stoltz has been managing director and chief executive officer of Spatial Partners since 2012.

He was a member of the Australian Construction Achievement Awards judging panel for three years, and deputy chair of the Victorian Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management for three years.

Mr Stoltz is an Engineers Australia member and a former president of its Victorian division.

He was awarded Engineers Australia's Sir John Holland Civil Engineer of the Year Award in 2012.

Mr Stoltz also chaired Engineers Australia's Learned Society Advisory Committee for two years.

He believed part of the reason he was being recognised for his service to engineering was because of the work he had done with Engineers Australia - notably, a knack for being able to "say difficult things in easy-to-understand terms."

Part of his Engineers Australia presidency coincided with media coverage of issues surrounding cladding.

During an interview, Mr Stoltz likened the structure of cladding to a vanilla slice.

"It's got a layer of aluminium on one side and another layer of aluminium on the other side, instead of pastry, and one layer, instead of icing on it, it's got colour," he said.

"The architects like it because it's lightweight, it's easy to use and cheap to manufacture.

"The only problem is, that gooey stuff in the middle is combustible."

The traction his comments gained led to other opportunities, like being part of the state government's cladding taskforce.

Central Victorians might remember Mr Stoltz as a former Bendigo mayor and Bendigo hospital board member and president.

Mr Stoltz was first elected to council at the age of 27. He turned 30 the year he was mayor.

"I had become politically active when I was quite young, and in fact, we set up a group here in Bendigo called the movement against uranium mining," he said.

"It was at a time when there was a report called the Fox Report - it would be the equivalent of a Royal Commission today.

"There were a lot of people in Bendigo who, these days, would be into environmental sustainability in one form or another.

"What we did in our group in Bendigo, we decided that rather than marching in the street and opposing something, we would turn it into a positive and we would demonstrate, if you like, an alternative lifestyle."

The group organised a demonstration of alternative technologies in Rosalind Park.

"That attracted a little bit of attention. But at the same time, there was a little bit of a dispute going on with some ratepayers at the council," Mr Stoltz said.

The controversy surrounded drainage issues that emerged following the development of a service station on High Street.

"The council decided they were going to put in a drainage scheme... the only problem was, they were going to get the ratepayers to pay for it," Mr Stoltz said.

"All the ratepayers didn't want to pay for it."

The recognition he had received through the demonstration led residents to approach him for help with advocating to council.

Mr Stoltz ended up leading the residents' movement against the council, which he considered successful.

That prompted suggestions Mr Stoltz stand for council.

"In those days, being on council was voluntary... didn't get paid a cent for it," he noted.

He bought his first suits after being elected mayor.

"And I used to ride my bike to council meetings," Mr Stoltz said.

He still rides his bike - occasionally, all the way up to the Bendigo Airport, where he hops in a plane and takes to the skies.

Mr Stoltz is a pilot and a member of the Bendigo Flying Club.

"I see myself as a proud Bendigonian," he said.

"Whatever exposure I can bring to Bendigo, I hope it's positive and I hope it helps Bendigo for the future."

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