PSO's first woman chief executive, Mrs Bremner has held the position for 24 years, since 1993.
She will retire at the end of March and join her husband, Graeme, in Botswana, where he has been working for just over a year as an associate professor of forensic science at a university in Palapye.
Dunedin-born Mrs Bremner grew up in Whanganui and, as a teenager, knew she wanted to do "something in the health sector''. She initially considered medicine but decided against that because she knew she would be homesick, having to move to Dunedin.
Instead, she trained as a nurse and midwife, gained postgraduate qualifications in nursing and health service management, and went on to hold senior executive roles at the Taranaki District Health Board before moving to Dunedin.
"Health is always a challenging environment,'' Mrs Bremner said. There was ``never enough money and it's always political''.
When she joined PSO in 1993, it was just after the government had stopped funding children's residential homes. Dunedin's Glendining Home and complex closed in 1991 and that meant PSO had to look at how to recreate the work the home had been doing.
Foster care played a greater part and the Buddy Programme was started for children between the ages of 4 and 12. The children were carefully matched, one to one, with a trained adult volunteer with whom they spent a few hours each week doing ordinary activities to provide support, guidance and encouragement and opportunities for new social experiences.
The programme spread throughout Otago and also operated in Southland and South Canterbury. It supported between 180 and 200 children every year.
A direct result of the 1991 benefit cuts was the establishment of the food bank. It had continued to grow and 100,000 food items were given out each month.
"But the challenge for us is, if we respond to a need like that, we become `part of the industry','' Mrs Bremner said.
"We now have a whole generation who have lived under that policy of deprivation.''
And that had taken the PSO ``down the path of advocacy'' because, as Mrs Bremner says, "if we never challenge, we won't find out why the service is needed''.
After visiting the United States and Scotland in 2000 to look at what the Presbyterian Church was doing in terms of advocacy, she returned to Dunedin wondering what could be done here.
The result was several research projects looking at the people coming to PSO for help and what brought them there.
A paper called "How Much is Enough?'' used focus groups to take people through what they thought they needed, their weekly budget and the gap between what they received and what they needed.
The next survey, "Old, Cold and Costly'', looked at housing in Dunedin, a tertiary town, and the effects on families of the competition for accommodation. Ten years later, "Out In the Cold'', a follow-up survey on the city's low-income private rental housing, showed there had been little improvement in the situation.
But the research was quoted in the first significant pieces of legislation about healthy housing.
The PSO's client services advocacy role was about the broader community, ``about how can we be more attentive to each other'', and Mrs Bremner also pointed to the services provided for older people by Enliven.
There was a growing demand for residential care. Those needing it now were becoming more dependent, and funding was essential. Pay equity was ``great'', as it recognised the value of trained carers and staff were encouraged to obtain training qualifications.
Mrs Bremner said she had "mixed emotions'' about leaving PSO but felt it was a good time to go.
"The organisation is in good heart and I've certainly done my time.''
