For Menang Noongar elder Lester Coyne, a lifetime of helping people find their place in the community has been more than just a job — it has been about opening doors that were once firmly shut.

Mr Coyne was born in Katanning and three years old when his family moved to Albany to develop farming opportunities.

“Shifting out of Katanning at that point in time was good as it was quite a tense place right up until 1967 for anyone who was an Aboriginal,” he said.

“My grandfather gave a block of land to my dad, so we were to come down and try and get that up and running and developed.

“I did a lot of helping Dad here and everywhere.”

Mr Coyne attended Albany Senior High School for three years before an opportunity to work at the Albany Golf Links gave him a reason to leave school at 15.

“I left school because Dad was the sole income provider and in those days Aboriginal people weren’t entitled to unemployment benefits either,” he said.

“I thought if I can get a job I can make a contribution, which I did.”

The job at the golf course also put him in contact with people from all corners of Albany, something that would later prove useful as he began working to create employment opportunities for Aboriginal people.

After studying community development at Curtin University, Mr Coyne joined the Commonwealth Employment Service, now known as Centrelink.

He worked across the regional district from Perth through to Bunbury, Collie and the Great Southern, helping Aboriginal people find jobs and develop pathways into the workforce.

Due to his former job at the golf course and being involved in local bands across Albany, Mr Coyne said he was often asked what he did for work and was able to use those conversations and past connections to open a door for someone else.

“They would say ‘what do you do for a living?’ and I would say ‘I work for Commonwealth Employment Services, I try to get Aboriginal people into jobs’,” he said.

“They would say ‘we don’t have any employed in my shop or business’ so I’d go around on Monday morning to talk to the manager and get Aboriginal people in there and trained.”

The approach helped create opportunities across the region, including apprenticeships in Albany.

“We had more apprentices trained in Albany than anywhere else in the country,” he said.

“We had people working all over the place.”

However, employment did not always mean fitting into an existing workplace.

For Indigenous people who wanted to take a different path, Mr Coyne helped establish small businesses and enterprises in regional towns.

He set up a screen printing business in Katanning, while a small private enterprise was established in Tambellup.

In Narrogin, another venture involved making seats and other furniture from tree branches.

For Mr Coyne, these projects were about giving people the confidence and skills to create an income for themselves.

“It was about getting people interested in making money,” he said.

For some people he worked with, simply entering the workforce was a completely new experience.

Mr Coyne recalled one worker asking why they were receiving $250 a week when they had been told they would earn $300.

“Where’s the $50 going?” they asked.

The missing money was going towards tax and superannuation, concepts that were unfamiliar to Indigenous people who had never worked before.

Those conversations became part of a broader effort to help people understand not just employment but the opportunities that could come with it.

“We were getting people interested in making money and then increasing their educational interest,” Mr Coyne said.

He spent about 12 to 13 years working in the employment sector before continuing his community work in other roles, including as chairman of the Great Southern Aboriginal Corporation.

Much of his working life has centred on the same idea — creating opportunities and helping people find a way forward.

That commitment has continued into Albany’s bicentenary year, with Mr Coyne taking on the role of an Albany 2026 ambassador.

For him the significance of the year is not just about marking 200 years but making sure Albany’s history is understood in all of its complexity.

“The City of Albany have been very good at understanding that we are not celebrating anything, we are commemorating,” he said.

Among the many events held throughout the year, Mr Coyne said the drone show First Lights Kinjarling was one of his favourite events.

“I remember the drone show — three nights in a row drawing thousands of people to Anzac Peace Park and there were a lot of people in awe of all the song and dance,” he said.

“The drone show was a big hit.”

Mr Coyne believes Albany’s bicentenary commemorations have created many opportunities to bring greater attention to the city’s Aboriginal history and share those stories with a much wider audience.

“Albany’s got a very colourful Aboriginal history and I would suggest that all of Australia does and to have it highlighted now and show it off is really good,” he said.

“Everybody and everybody I know has really loved it.”