Olwen Abigail Wooster

Olwen Abigail Wooster BEM (22 December 1917 – 11 October 1981) was an Australian air force officer and pioneering telecommunications engineer expert.

Early life Wooster, was born on 22 December 1917,

Career Working as a switchboard operator in the Postmaster-General's Department beginning in 1934, she was stationed in Ayr in 1936, and then in Townsville in 1941.

In World War II, she was a wireless telegraphy operator in the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force in 1942. She served at the Royal Australian Air Force's Melbourne Wireless Transmitting Station as a cypher officer and signals traffic officer. In January 1945, she received an award for 'good service' and was promoted to temporary flight officer. By 1954, her team had grown to a total of 120 people. For this work, she received a British Empire Medal in 1961. In 1964, Wooster then joined the Victorian Totalisator Agency Board, which operated gambling and betting shops. Here she worked on communications and computing systems which connected around three hundred town and country agencies and district centres with racecourses. Then in 1967 she began work for Honeywell. In 1978, she launched her own consultancy, O. A. Wooster & Associates Pty Ltd, specialising in computing and communications. and was the Australian representative for the organisation of the Second International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists held in Cambridge, England in 1967. She was president of the Melbourne Soroptimists from 1972 to 1973 and a member of the Lyceum Club.

Her archives are held at University of Melbourne.