Tyson Tripcony

Griffith Health's 2022 Outstanding Young Alumnus

Master of Nutrition and Dietetics

The recipient of Griffith University Outstanding Young Alumnus Award for the Health group, Tyson Tripcony, has made a career out of hustling and putting nearly every minute in every day to good use. It’s a strategy that has paid-off in spades for the Master of Nutrition and Dietetics graduate; he is now Owner and Managing Director of Fuel Your Life, the largest private practice dietetics company in Australia.

Fuel Your Life harnesses more than 150 years of combined dietetics experience to deliver custom nutrition solutions for a diverse range of clients and organisations. His aim is to push the boundaries of what is possible, drive change and inspire the future of dietetics as an industry.

“I’m particularly passionate about improving the quality of dietitians in the entire industry, not just our team,” he explains. “We have the ability to impact on all these dietitians and help them provide the best private practice care. I also have another business called Dietitian Life where we give free support and development to dietitians, and we’ve been doing that for more than five years.”

The drive to reshape the industry and educate others is largely what’s made Tyson’s businesses so successful; he’s been collecting various business accolades since 2016. Some of the larger awards include the 2022 Queensland Telstra Business Award for Championing Health, the Australian Business Awards Service Excellence Award in 2021, Optus myBusiness Health Business of the Year and an Australian Small Business Champion Award for Best Health Improvement Service.

“The awards we’ve won have been amazing, but it feels really good to be recognised on an individual level by Griffith. It’s really cool,” he says.

Since graduating from Griffith in 2011, Tyson has worked across a variety of settings, from in the community, elite sport, in schools and in private hospitals, to within the Indigenous Health Service, medical centres, aged care and corporate settings.

He went into his first business, Correct Nutrition, in 2012 as a “one-man-operation”, adding businesses under the expanding company banner of Allied Performance.

Now, he employs a total of 70 staff across more than 250 locations of Fuel Your Life and is working hard to continue disrupting the standard dietetics microbusiness model.

“I am immensely proud of this success, scaling over just five years by consistently pushing boundaries, whilst maintaining staff support and company growth as constants.”

Along with his core business of war veteran support, Tyson has seized opportunities to invest in new initiatives and set further growth goals, via methods such as elite sports partnerships, corporate performance programs and international expansion.

So far, Fuel Your Life has partnered with the LA Sparks [US Women’s National Basketball Association], Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Victory [A-League soccer] and the Melbourne Storm [National Rugby League].

Tyson says that students who want to follow in his footsteps should be prepared to work hard and look beyond just the study books. “Do some industry work experience,” he advises. “Get out there and try it out in the industry and learn all the different aspects. Think outside the bookwork to what kind of connections you can make and experience you can get.”

“When I am looking to hire, seeing someone with work experience on their resume shows me that they've got ambition; they've got determination to try and go above the norm. It shows me they’re inquisitive and they actually care about becoming a dietitian. Work experience puts them at the top of the pile every time.”

His top piece of advice is to always let your work ethic match your ambition and don’t follow the crowd. “Once you have a goal, be prepared to work your butt off to get it; it’s not just going to come to you,” he says.

“I’m proud that we didn't do it like other people; I never followed someone, and we never tried to replicate what someone else did. We just went, ‘Right, how can we do something better?’”