Able Seaman Hohnberg has travelled majority of the worlds oceans. As a Marine Technician in the Navy, she sets out for months on end working on some of the biggest Navy ships in Australia. She’s performed operations in 7 different countries, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan just to name a few, and she’s only 25 years old.
Maddison was raised in the small town of Trangie, in Western NSW. With 4 other siblings, 3 brothers and an older sister, she grew up tinkering around the farm , getting her hands dirty , working old machinery; the perfect foundation to become a Marine Technician. She always knew she was technical-minded and wanted to do something practical when she grew up.
Maddie at the age of 13, with little options of going to high school in her town, set foot for Bathurst to Scotts College, a co-ed boarding school, 3 hours drive from where she grew up. Although her parents didn’t attend boarding school, they sent her off with high hopes she’d thrive.
It was here she did, with a strict routine of homework, sport, and time spent with her friends she knew it was the perfect foundation to go on to be a part of the Navy. It’s a stellar start to her career, but she tells me if it wasn’t for boarding school she doesn’t think she’d be where she is today.
In this podcast Maddie tells me of her hopes and dreams to reach the top, becoming a Marine Engineering Officer. She wants to defy the odds of women getting there. She also tells us how her experience living with 15 other young women , in the same room at boarding school has prepared her for the Navy and how sometimes in life you just have to give it a shot.