Daniel Birnbaum “Danny”
22/09/1952 ~ 07/10/2022
A Celebration of Danny’s life
will be held at Malvern Valley Golf Course,
1 Golfers Dr, Malvern East,
Friday 21st October 2022 commencing at 10:00am.
In lieu of flowers family have asked for donations to be made to The Peter Mac Foundation
https://memorialgift.petermac.org.au/dannybirnbaum
11 Tributes
Emmanuel Pythas
It is with the greatest of sadness that we farewell our colleague and friend, Danny Birnbaum.
A treasured and highly-respected member of the wider ABCorp team, Danny gave his very best at all times.
Danny’s extremely high-calibre level of work was constantly noticed and frequently acknowledged both internally by his peers and externally by our customers:
“Danny was always so fantastic to work with and such a lovely man as well. I always enjoyed my interactions with him” – Coles FlyBuys
Danny’s wonderful easy-going nature and wicked sense of humour will be sorely missed. He will long continue to live on in our memories and hearts.
We take this opportunity to wish Danny’s family all the courage and strength during this sorrowful time. Our most sincere condolences and may he Rest In Eternal Peace.
Emmanuel Pythas – Managing Director Asia Pacific
American Banknote Corporation
17 October 2022
Emma Birnbaum
Thank you, that is such a lovely tribute to Dad, he took a lot of pride in his work and he would be honoured.
Gayle Staley
RIP Danny. Fond memories of our time at Australia Post. My condolences to Mandy and family.
Emma Birnbaum
Thank you Gayle x
Wendy Brammer
My heartfelt condolences to Mandy, Jessica, Emma, Ben, partners and children. I am unable to attend Danny’s celebration but will raise a glass with fond memories of a considerate, funny man. As soon as I started working with him at Australia Post our sense of humour just clicked. He knew his work and did it to a high calibre. I’m thinking of the fun times Mandy that we all had over dinners and ‘winery walkabouts’. Love and blessings, Wendy.
Emma Birnbaum
Thank you, Wendy, there were certainly many great times and memories. Mum will hopefully get up to visit you soon and she’ll enjoy reminiscing. Thank you also for your incredible contribution to Peter Mac. xx
Liz Sully
Danny was the epitome of ‘happiness’.
The ever-present smile or boyish grin.
The funny comments, cheeky observations or subtle jokes.
Directed at himself or when directed outwardly to others they were followed by ….. ”Just Joshing!”
So, whenever you were around him the stress levels went down and the feel-good quotient went up.
It was impossible to be angry with him.
And the only anger I saw him demonstrate was related to the on and off field performances of the Essendon Football Club.
However, underneath there was also a healthy intellect and thoughtful contemplation.
The desire for social justice. Honesty. Equality. Humanity.
He knew how to balance the frivolous and the serious.
And all the time contributing and working hard and smart for those around him.
Not just for his beloved family. But also for his friends, work colleagues, his clients and his community.
To Mandy and the family, no words can describe your loss nor soften the pain you are feeling.
Take care.
Oh Danny. Your time has come way too soon. It was a privilege to know you.
Rest in Peace.
Liz S.
Gerry and Maggie Butler
Remembering all the good times we had with Danny.
Maggie and Gerry
Dave Cole
I have struggled for days to put into words how I feel about this news, and still cannot adequately express the admiration and respect I had for Danny. Here goes anyway.
The first time I worked with Danny was on the EDIPOST project at Australia Post way back in 1992. Danny drove this project forwards to success with endless enthusiasm, commitment, and unreserved friendliness. Something I soon learned to just be part of who Danny was. His technical insights and how they related to business priorities were a key part of why that project worked. With the giddy excitement Danny generated we put in ridiculous hours to get the system delivered, and the small project eventually become a group within AusPost.
Fun fact: we put AusPost on the Internet on the sly, and even registered the auspost.com.au domain name (without official permission *ahem*).
A memory that has always stuck with me was when Danny and I travelled to Sydney to install the EDIPOST system there, Danny organised the hotel bookings. He told me that he had managed to get us rooms with a “mini spa” which made me pretty excited. When we arrived at the hotel I had a look through my room and could not find the spa. I went to Danny’s room and complained that I did not get a spa. Turns out he didn’t either. After a few seconds Danny realised he had misheard “mini bar”.
By pure coincidence the EDIPOST system ended up being sold to the farcical International Data Post company in Denmark. This sent Danny and I to Denmark for work at IDP in 1994. Nothing useful ever came out of that company, but we had some good times.
Some years later (2005 maybe), Danny and I ended up working on another EDIPOST like project with PrintSoft that saw us working for a couple of months in Brasil and then for a few weeks in South Africa. Danny’s endless commitment and enthusiasm to delivering a good result had us happily working extremely long hours to meet unrealistic expectations. Some memories of our time together in those countries will never fade.
I thought my Hybrid Mail days were over when in 2011 Danny and Roland asked me to help them out on their Max system that they developed for the Post Connect group at AusPost. I spent some very enjoyable years working with Danny and Roland.
Danny was driven, insightful, technically inspired, trustworthy to a fault and extremely friendly. He had the ability to inspire others beyond anyone else I have ever met. Danny never played games, and you always knew where you stood.
The world is a worse place now that Danny is no longer with us.
Emma Birnbaum
Dave, that’s a lovely tribute. Dad loved that “mini spa” story too, an absolute classic! You and Roland were his dream team and I know he loved every minute of working with you, often recounting many stories of your time together. I think they were some of his favourite times of his professional career. Pavel and I often use his go-to “Daaaaave” with that middle finger head rub we so often saw. You summarised him so perfectly.
Love to you and the family, Emma
Michael Gorman
I work at Flybuys and Danny was our go to man during his years at Australia Post and ABCorp. He was a thorough professional but also a pleasure to deal with. He was a gun especially with his technical knowledge and always made life easy for us. I got to chat with him over the years and met him on several occasions when we went for on-site visits. He was laid back and had a dry sense of humour which appealed to me.
I like to think of him as a friend and he will be missed by those of us at Flybuys who had the chance to work with him.