MEMBER PROFILE
EMERGING LEADER
BRADLEY WHITE
Brad White is a Civil Engineer with over 28 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. He has broad experience with a diverse and wellrounded set of skills and is a people-focused leader. Brad started his career with an engineering cadetship at Brisbane City Council, working full-time and studying an Engineering Degree part-time at QUT in Brisbane. Following small stints in waterways policy and a private consultancy, Brad joined Logan City Council as the Capital Works Engineer, where he undertook further studies gaining qualifications in project management. Over the next 13 years, opportunities were presented to work as a program leader in Road Maintenance and then management opportunities in Waste Management and Plant & Fleet Services. He was also the Chair of the Infrastructure Recovery Sub-Group during the 2017 Floods. Brad has participated in a number of formal leadership development programs at Logan City Council and the Propeller Program through the LGMA. He is currently the Parks Manager at Logan City Council. Brad is married and with two children and is a keen angler. When he isn’t working, you’ll find him fishing offshore on his boat
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Doug Larsen BMX Skate Park.
or kayak in the southern Gold Coast waters. Who or what has contributed mostly to your career progression to date? Good mentors and maximising on opportunities. I am privileged to still have a few good mentors that I have previously worked for either directly or indirectly – they’ll remain anonymous, although they will know who they are when they read this article. I suggest you don’t limit yourself to one mentor either, mentors have different strengths and it’s important to see different points of view as you develop through your career. Opportunities can come when you least expect them and potentially have the worst timing. When I first moved into a role as an operational leader, I progressed from leading one staff member to one hundred staff members. The weekend before I started in the new role, my daughter had been very sick in hospital. I was tired, selfconfidence was plummeting, and I remember looking at my new organisation structure thinking what I have got myself in for. Funnily enough, it all worked
out. I think self-doubt is a natural human response to change and challenge. In my experience, most people rise to the challenge and are always better as a result. What have been your career highlights? This is a great question and encouraged me to reflect on my career. It’s interesting to consider how your own definition of a highlight changes over the years. When I first started my cadetship program it was a tough way to get qualifications, as full-time work and attending lectures at night meant long days with weekends studying. I wasn’t partying like I had envisaged at that age. The part-time course through QUT was six years. It was a major highlight to get that piece of paper and be presented with my qualification in front of my family. Reflecting on my early years as an engineer, highlights seem simpler. In one of my earlier roles as the Capital Works Engineer, I was part of a team delivering the Roads Capital Infrastructure Program. This role allowed me to lead a project to transform business systems around how the program was managed and reported. It involved the re-framing of programming and project management data, planning information and
ENGINEERING FOR PUBLIC WORKS | MARCH 2021
