New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards

Auckland engineer recognised for Engineering Leadership

22 November 2007

Auckland engineer Ian Parton was presented the William Pickering Award for Engineering Leadership at the New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards last night at TE PAPA, Wellington.

The William Pickering Award for Engineering Leadership is the most prestigious of the individual awards, recognising an engineer who has acted as a role model and exceptional leader. The 2007 recipient is Ian Parton.

With an engineering career spanning more than 38 years, Ian has been instrumental in transforming business and export engineering services.

Convenor for the NZEE Individual Awards judging panel Steve Gentry said the former Managing Director of Meritec (formerly Worley Consultants) demonstrated leadership and vision to transform the small consultancy into a highly successful international professional engineering services firm. Steve says Ian was also the driving force behind the establishment and success of Worley Consultants’ geotechnical division.

In 1996, Meritec received a Trade New Zealand Excellence Award as an exporter of services. Ian also led Trade New Zealand missions to several Asian countries and facilitated others to Eastern Europe.

He is now a Director on a number of governance boards, including that of Industrial Research Ltd (IRL), VT Fitzroy Ltd, Watercare Services Ltd and HTS-110 Ltd, a technology start-up company commercialising superconductor technology.

Ian played a formative role in developing a future vision for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland and chaired its inaugural advisory board. He served for 16½ years as a Trustee of the St Cuthbert’s College Educational Trust and oversaw the planning and construction of major building programmes at the College.

Ian’s active involvement in IPENZ culminated in his election to Distinguished Fellow in 2002 and he served as President in 2004.

The third 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 New Zealand (ACENZ); and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand Inc (IPENZ).

Media enquiries contact:

Verona-Meiana Putaranui, NZEE Awards Media Co-ordinator

Email: media@ipenz.org.nz

Phone: +64 4 473 2028 or Cell: +64 21 479885