Donna Wheatley

Donna Wheatley is a Commander with Fire Rescue Victoria. After 15 years' service on trucks she was one of the first two women to achieve this rank in Victoria in 2018. With still less than 4% representation of women in operations within the paid fire services across the county, trail blazing continues to have its gender bias challenges in this industry. Donna came to the Fire Brigade from an established career in gendered services - managing family violence outreach across 3 shires of central Victoria and a specialisation in Gestalt Psychotherapy, with a lens of systems theory. As a result her ability to see the systemic gendered disadvantage has won her accolades and enemies for the work she has done "calling it out" for 20 years.