Before the Cleo Bachelor of The Year thing, before being referred to in numerous media publications as ‘Australia’s Richard Branson’, around the same time he did costume character appearances as The Paddle Pop Lion….

Pete was 21 years old, and reading the book,’The One Minute Millionaire’, and in it, it tells the story of a guy from New Jersey, who in the 1980’s sold old pieces of the famous Brooklyn Bridges walkway timber. He went about creating 5? x 11? certificates outlining the history of the bridge, attaching a small piece of the timber and selling them for around $14.95 each… and word around the campfire is that he made like $2 million from it…

Obviously as a young Trump-wanna-be Pete loved this idea, and started to think how he could rip this idea off replicate the idea and implement it here in Australia - it was a much better idea then pinching golf balls off the local pitch-n-putt to resell.

After racking the brain for about 10mins, Pete realised the Melbourne Cricket Ground was under reconstruction and the Ponsford Stand had just been ripped down… On the back of a few phone calls and newly-found entrepreneurial-confidence Pete was able to track down the wrecking company which was demolishing the Ponsford stand (at this stage the Members Pavilion had not been touched), who said they had a significant amount of timber from the seating and flooring as hoped…

However to his amazement they also had a considerable amount of the world famous MCC Crested Carpet - which originally lay in the members dining room. You know the world famous carpet, the one that has been walked on by the greats - Don Bradman and EJ Whitten etc etc… The same carpet that graced the MCC Members Long Room - the most loved watering hole in all of sport.

So after rushing down the western highway the following morning to view the magnificent carpet just lying in the corner of the wreckers’ warehouse Pete took all the remaining crested carpet, along with a mass of timber.

From that point on he enlisted the help of some friends who helped create a series of framed limited edition sports memorabilia pieces which sold from $595 to $1495. These included a photo of the G, a piece of the famous carpet and even a limited number series that had their frame created out of the timber which was once the stadium.

Amongst a wide range of creative and unique marketing techniques and strategies employed, a press release created with the headline “21 Year Old Sells MCG For Under $500? generated over $50,000 of FREE advertising and publicity in media via Channel 7 news, Herald Sun articles, AM and FM Radio interviews and trade magazine articles , which generated a huge proportion of sales at no cost… and it was during all this free publicity that Pete was first referred to as ‘Australia’s Richard Branson’

Now just a few years on, Pete has begun to build his empire and be truly recognized as one of Australia’s leading entrepreneurs - Having been featured in almost every Australian Business Magazine including The Bulletin, Money Magazine, Australian Anthill, Success Magazine and many many more.

Pete’s business endeavors now include:

* Infiniti Telecommunications
* On Hold Advertising
* Discount Mobiles
* Simply Headsets
* MCG Memories - Sports Memorabilia
* Renegade Publicist