Whitaker Group Team

Stephen Whitaker is the founder and sole director of Whitaker Group. Stephen has spent over 15 years working towards the goal of establishing his own company and this goal only strengthened when he was able to identify that his ethos and work ethic was not aligned with many of those in his industry. 

Stephen founded Whitaker Group to do something different to the norm. Whitaker Group is not just another one man band town planning company but rather a business ecosystem of independent ventures that provide diversity but also dependency, allowing Whitaker Group to combine areas of the business to deliver products and services that our competitors could only dream of. Why not contact us and see how we can create a unique solution for you.

Town Planning

Stephen is a professional Town Planner with extensive experience in both private and government sectors. 

Stephen is passionate about delivering fit-for-purpose planning policies for communities, exhibited through his experience in the drafting and amending of planning schemes and his detailed work in master planning, particularly within Indigenous communities. Stephen’s ability to draft relevant and appropriate planning policy is founded on his extensive experience with development projects and development assessment work across all land use sectors. Stephen understands the development process and the various ways in which planning interventions can be used to achieve desired outcomes.

Stephen employs his strong analytical skills, combined with his broad and varied experience across a variety of sectors, locations and disciplines, to solve problems with fit-for-purpose solutions. Irrespective of the size of the project, Stephen is committed to ensuring the best outcome is achieved. 

Pictured: Stephen with the artwork "Goeynaw" by Weldon Matasia of Badu Island. Goeynaw is the centrepiece of Stephen's small personal collection and was purchased at the Gab Titui Cultural Centre on Thursday Island in 2020.

Railways

From a young age, Stephen has had a passion for railways and this has only grown as his resources and knowledge have expanded as an adult. Combined with his passion for travel across Queensland and Australia, Stephen has completed thousands of kilometres chasing, photographing and videographing trains and, thanks to his professional background, has brought a new approach to an otherwise often niche hobby. Stephen is the driving force behind Railfan Network, a venture that aims to recognise the significant efforts of all railfans in documenting railway activities whilst also make railfanning accessible to the broader community, through easier access to information and educational tools and resources. 

Pictured: Stephen on location at Spring Bluff Railway Station, getting some planning work done while waiting for the next train to arrive, cameras at the ready.

Photography

Whilst railways introduced Stephen to the world of high quality photography, he has since expanded his interests to a broad variety of subjects and topics including sunrises and sunsets, motorsport, general scenery, night scenes and cycling. You can see Stephen's portfolio through our dedicated Photography 916 page. 

Pictured: Stephen always wants to get that perfect shot and has a number of unique methods to do so. Nothing stands in his way. Here he is at Murphy's Creek maximising the use of his car sunroof. Photograph courtesy of Rail Town Productions.

Motorsport

Stephen is an experienced and skilled racing driver, having competed in local, State, national and international events covering gravel rallying, circuit and hill climbs. Unlike many other competitors, Stephen does not come from a mechanical or motorsport background and first started learning how to jack a car up and change its wheels and tyres. Stephen has progressively worked to further his mechnical skills, often taking a "unique" approach known by his team mates as "the Stephen system". Through his ongoing drive to achieve his motorsport goals, Stephen is now able to undertake most mechanical works required to maintain his ever growing fleet of vehicles, being most famous for swapping engines for the fun of it.

To support his motorsport activities, Stephen founded Whitaker Rallysport (now Whitaker Motorsport) in 2015, with the goal of competing in Rally Queensland and Rally Australia, his two favourite rallies, that he'd spectated at many times as a child and adult. Partly due to a lack of ability to undertake significant car building work, like metal fabrication, Stephen quickly learnt that motorsport is not only dangerous but expensive. Driven by nothing more than a dream and his faith that he had what it took to be a racecar driver and, inspired by the story of Niki Lauda in Formula 1 in the 1970s, he went to the bank and took out a loan for "mechanical repairs". And the rest is history. Six months after that trip to the bank manager, Stephen and his brother, best friend and now codriver, Jarryd, were sitting on the start line at their first ever rally special stage in the very place where the dream was born, the special Imbil State Forest, south of Gympie. 

What many people may not have seen is that for years, Whitaker Motorsport was run on a very tight budget, funded only by Stephen's salary as a professional town planner (and that help from the bank manager). Prior to 2019, Stephen drove the car (no air conditioning or radio) to every event on public roads and until 2020 the Mirage ran stock suspension, which was changed out every two events once it failed. 

After a sudden end to his drive at Rally Queensland 2021, after placing 16th outright in the QRC component, Stephen decided to cease rallying to focus on building what is now Whitaker Group. Stephen is currently planning a comeback to competitive rallying in 2025, with a professional level program. 

Pictured: Stephen at Rally Australia 2017, where he and Jarryd showed up a number of highly rated competitors by finishing on the podium in the 2WD Queensland component of the event. Not bad for our 2nd ever event as a team when most people's recce car was more powerful than our race car.

Family

The only thing that matters above all, is family. Whitaker Group is founded on the strong business history of both the Whitaker family and the Armitage family across Queensland. Stephen has involved select members of his family in the company, not because they are his family, but because he has identified that they possess a variety of significant and untapped skills which do not have opportunities to be realised. Stephen's view is that a talented person should not have to work themselves to the ground to be able to show and use their talent. Stephen's goal is to therefore empower others to realise their potential through Whitaker Group. 

Pictured: Whitaker Lane, Bundaberg North, is named after Stephen and Jarryd's Great Grandfather, Frederick (Fred) Whitaker, a prominent businessman in Bundaberg during the early 20th century. 

 Michaela Huelin is a diversely experienced planning professional who is known for developing strong relationships with clients, stakeholders and communities. Much of her experience comes from working in regional and remote communities and it is through this experience that she has developed an appreciation for the need to properly understand the key drivers of a community, to inform proper planning intervention. Michaela seeks to deliver practical people focused solutions.

Michaela has a genuine passion for assisting communities and industry to achieve good planning outcomes by applying her expertise and collaborative approach to every project. She offers inter-disciplinary knowledge, adeptness, a collaborative work ethic and the ability to forge trusted relationships. Michaela is committed to creating quality liveable environments through planning, design and community engagement, whilst addressing project challenges with a robust methodology and balanced perspective. 

Michaela is a talented project manager, her background across both public and private sector means she has a strong understanding of the commercial imperatives of property development and aptitude to navigate legislative and stakeholder challenges.  

Anthony Evans is an experienced and talented photographer, videographer and video editor known for his passion and creative skills. Anthony has experience working with a range of different media and his photographs are regularly published in print media.

Anthony is a founding member of the Railfan Network, a Whitaker Group Business and is known as one of the pre-eminent railway media providers in Australia.

Anthony supports a variety of activities for Whitaker Group including Railfan's Roundhouse, Railfan's Guide and Differential Media.

Chris Jansen is a long time partner of Whitaker Group, assisting with the early development of a number of our businesses including Whitaker Motorsport and Railfan’s Roundhouse.

Chris provides a range of skills which are used to support a number of the group’s businesses.

Melissa Masani assists Whitaker Group with a range of administrative and marketing activities, including the management of the company's various social media accounts and preparation of video packages for various promotional projects, both internal and external to the company. 

Mel is known for her positive personality and ability to communicate and connect with people.