You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Meet Glen Prince
Job:
Project Manager for the smart motorway.
Job description:
Overall project manager responsible to deliver the project for NZTA as owner of the State Highway network.
Work background:
20+ years working in the transport sector, including four years in the UK at the start of my career. I’ve been with the Transport Agency for around 6 months after 18 years in an engineering consultancy practice. My specialties include; construction of capital projects, road maintenance and asset management, traffic engineering and project management.
Favourite part of job:
Working with very talented people.
Least favourite part of job:
6a.m. starts and mountains of email!
What I am working on now:
New Zealand’s smartest motorway in New Zealand’s smartest city!
A quick story about a job well done:
Closing the Wellington urban motorway for 12 hours and successfully completing the Thorndon Overbridge ‘stitch pour’ and gantry lifts without significant delays to road users. Great result for the project team!
A (humorous) story about a job that went badly and what you learned:
I was managing a project which included an extensive geotechnical testing programme in very remote and challenging terrain when I received a call from a distressed staff member stating that the ute he was using was about to roll down a bank and be written off. I arrived on site around 6pm in the grip of winter to find the ute tethered to two other utes and an excavator to prevent it from falling into the abyss. So in reality, three vehicles were in fact at risk of being severely damaged – slight omission on the part of the staff member concerned!! Fortunately everyone was uninjured.
Anyway, after trying for several hours to retrieve the vehicle/s, we gave up defeated and headed home with our tails between our legs. I then had to explain to our chief executive how our bullet-proof health and safety processes had resulted in such a predicament. Fortunately, when we returned in daylight, we were able to safely retrieve the vehicles and everyone’s egos and bank balances were left intact! Lesson: 2WD vehicles are no good in axle-deep mud and just because a vehicle has four wheels, it doesn’t mean it’s a 4WD!
Qualifications:
Honours Degree in Civil Engineering, Chartered Professional Engineer and a Member of IPENZ.
Interests outside work:
Sport, sport and more sport…..and of course my family!
Glen Prince is Project Manager for the smart motorway. Image: NZTA.