For Tim Cleary, the phrase "full circle" has been coming to mind a lot lately.
The experienced educator and one-time Manly Sea Eagles chief executive will return to where his career started when he takes up his new post as St Edmund's College principal.
When he walks through the doors next year, it will be his fourth stint at the independent Catholic boys' school.
The very first time he was a 20-year-old new scheme teacher stepping into his first teaching role in 1986.
He came back to the school as a coordinator and then returned as deputy principal from 1997 to 2001.
"I'm very excited to be back in Canberra, and also leading St Edmund's," Mr Cleary said.
"It's a place I love and it's a place that I want to make sure that builds into the future with great strength and unity."
Mr Cleary is currently interim principal at St Thomas Aquinas Primary School in Charnwood after the former principal Leah Taylor was appointed to run the Catholic early learning centres late last year.
His previous roles include working for his own consultancy business, principal at All Saints College Maitland and a director role in the Sydney Catholic Education Office.
Mr Cleary was headmaster at St Augustine's College, a Catholic boys' school in Sydney's northern beaches, from 2002 to 2016. In that time, he grew enrolments from 400 students to 1200 and managed an expansion of the campus.
"We built a lot of buildings and had a good strategic plan, had a master plan, and enjoyed great success," he said.
The school was across the road from Brookvale Oval, where Mr Cleary was on the committee.
One day in 2016 the Manly Sea Eagles rugby league club owners knocked on his door and asked him to take on the role of chief executive of the club. He accepted.
His main project was to create a submission to the government for funding to build a centre of excellence at the Brookvale Oval, including a new grandstand with educational and medical facilities.
"I was able to execute a master plan at the school across the road and had good relationships with the community and also with the politicians and the local people at the time," he said.
His rugby league management career didn't last long - he resigned in May 2017 - but the centre of excellence did get funding.
"It had its own challenges, but we'll leave it at that," Mr Cleary said of that period of his career.
His focus now is create a new strategic plan for St Edmund's College to achieve its potential.
When Mr Cleary left St Edmund's there were 1200 students enrolled. As of February last year, the school had 809 enrolments. The incoming principal is confident the school can get back to its peak of 1200 by ensuring it has a strong identity.
"It's a part of 55 schools in the Edmund rice tradition in Australia, and nearly 40,000 students," he said.
"It's got a wonderful story and tradition in history that needs to be known and understood and it needs a strategic intention going forward for the future.
"I've seen St Edmund's at its strength. It needs to get back to 1200 students. That will happen, and that will happen in the next couple of years."
Mr Cleary counts Matthew Hutchison, principal of Marist College Canberra, as one of his best mates and colleagues.
The two of them went through school together at Daramalan College, worked together in Sydney schools and now have ended up as headmasters of the two Catholic boys' independent schools in Canberra.
"We've been together very closely connected and best mates for many years," Mr Cleary said.
Mr Cleary has a place in Manly he loves, but Canberra has always been home.
"This is a beautiful place. This is where our heart is and this is where we'll stay," he said.
"This is this is the 'return to centre'."
