Wellington engineers scoop the prize pool at national engineering awards

November 2008

When it comes to engineering Wellington is tops as local engineers took out the engineering leadership, engineering entrepreneur and top roading awards at 2008 New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards at TE PAPA in Wellington last night.

Opus Chief, Kevin Thompson took out the William Pickering Award for Engineering Leadership. This is the most prestigious of the individual awards, recognising an engineer who has acted as a role model and exceptional leader. Johnsonville firm Windsor Engineering where awarded the Engineering Entrepreneur for developing a highly successful kiln-dry wood technology for international markets and the Inner-city Bypass won the top roads and transport award.

With an engineering career spanning more than 35 years, Kevin Thompson, Chief Executive and Managing Director of Opus International Consultants has been instrumental in transforming Opus, from a New Zealand company to a truly internal global company. Convenor for the NZEE Individual Awards judging panel Steve Gentry said Kevin demonstrated leadership and vision to grow the local consultancy into a highly successful international professional engineering services firm.

“Kevin was also the driving force behind the success of Opus international with more than 45 offices across Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, doubling staff and quadrupling growth in international markets,” he says.

A 2008 winner of the Wellingtonian-of-the-Year Award for Business, Kevin Thompson’s career has spanned numerous engineering achievements including infrastructure management throughout South Island. In the late 1980’s following the disestablishment of the former Ministry of Works, he was the Chief Executive of Works Civil Construction where he successful transitioned a traditional Government Department to a successful commercial operation.

The Windsor Engineering team of Andrew Buchanan, Malcolm Fredric, David Parle and William Studd recognised a huge opportunity to kiln-dry wood in a matter of hours rather than days. The team developed the technology and established successful export markets in Australia, Chile, South Africa and more recently China and the United States. The success story of this local engineering firm is second-to-none beginning with a capital base of around $2,000 in 1975, Windsor Engineering Group’s annual sales figures now top over $40 million and they are growing new export markets with new process energy, gas and heat exchanger equipment.

Engineers from Fulton Hogan, NZ Transport Agency, Opus and Wellington City Council worked on the complex Wellington Inner-city Bypass project overcoming issues of limited space, high earthquake loads and poor ground quality.

The fourth New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for New Zealand engineering professionals. The awards are presented in two major areas: Individual Awards, that recognise leadership, entrepreneurship, and our young engineers; and Category Awards, that recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Category winners.

The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are hosted by a consortium of five partners and 10 contributing organisations. The partners are: Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE); Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Incorporated (INGENIUM); Electricity Engineers Association of New Zealand (EEA); Association of Consulting Engineers of New Zealand (ACENZ) and the Institution of Professional Engineers of New Zealand (IPENZ.)

For more information contact:
Chief Executive, IPENZ, Engineers New Zealand.
Mobile: 021 311 879
DDI: 04 474 8935
Prepared by Julie Buchanan, Communications Manager, IPENZ, Engineers NZ,
Mobile: 021 479 885, DDI: 04 473 2028