IPWEAQ UPDATES
BREAKING GROUND
David Thompson Industry Engagement Manager
On any given day, my portfolio leads me to a variety of interactions with industry leaders and practitioners. My base workload is aiding the development of professional services for the public works sector in the form of learning experiences for professionals, delivering workshops, product and resource development and executive support as required for several industry representative Working Groups. To achieve this, I have recently been involved in three very different projects. First, I have commenced recording of a video segment called “Breaking Ground”. This is an interview targeted at engineers or technical professionals currently practicing
David Thompson, Industry Engagement Manager, with Brent O’Neill ‘Breaking Ground’.
in industry. It is designed to enhance the awareness of and engagement of engineers with IPWEAQ, while encouraging potential engineers and supporting professionals to the sector. The interviews are designed to showcase the personalities and achievements of individual professionals. The format is a lighted hearted oneon-one interview with me and a willing practicing engineer or technical professional. The questions put to the interviewees are a mix of un-intrusive personal and role focused questions designed to quickly draw-out the character and personality of the interviewee. This provides the audience access to an experience that may trigger a connection to the occupation of an engineer or technical professional. A recent interview was with Brent O’Neill, Director of Urban Design at Wolter Consulting
Group. Brent had an interesting segue into urban design coming from a Fine Arts career where he worked in theatre stage set design for major productions. Brent says there are a lot of similarities between set design and subdivision design. You can view the whole interview here. We intend to grow the bank of interviews and you will get to know a number of great public works professionals making a real difference to Queensland communities. Secondly, having come from the civil sector I worked my way up from plant and field operations to manager of materials testing laboratories. I could see at times a disconnect between site practitioners and soil testing facilities and staff. Sometimes, as the soil tester, you are only seen as the bearer of bad news or the reason why a sample or lot has failed.
Materials preparation and compaction mould filling for moisture density relationship.
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ENGINEERING FOR PUBLIC WORKS | JUNE 2021
