You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Meet William Dobson
Job:
Section Engineer.
Job description:
Oversee the construction of the Northern tunnel portal structure, ventilation tunnel and ventilation building.
Work background:
5 years of experience working as an engineer on New Zealand construction on projects such as the Ngaruawahia Bypass motorway, a waste water pump station and a highway bridge replacement. All projects have had a variety of different types of work including building new roads, bridges, buildings and pipelines. The last 2 years have been spent on Waterview building the Great North Road Interchange bridges and now the completion of the Northern tunnel portal, ventilation tunnel and ventilation building.
Favourite part of job:
Coming up with solutions to problems and walking away at the end of a job and seeing an amazing structure that you have been a part of building.
Least favourite part of job:
Redoing work that has already been completed.
A quick story about a job well done:
Closing the South Western Motorway in the middle of the night, setting up a 450T crane on the road to lift 45T of steel up to the top of a bridge column. Then opening the road in time for the morning traffic.
A (humorous) story about a job that went badly and what you learned:
When pouring concrete into a mould I ran out of concrete. After ringing the concrete plant and complaining several times that they sent the wrong amount I re-calculated how much I needed and realised that I had calculated it wrong. From that I learnt to always check my calculations.
Qualifications:
Bachelor of Engineering.
Interests outside work:
Golf and tennis.
Meet William Dobson, a Section Engineer for the Well Connected Alliance. Image: NZTA.