Special Interest group for Engineering General Practitioners

Newsletter | August 2019

First a thank you to all of you who have joined since we formed as the Special Interest Group for Engineering General Practitioners. The numbers are climbing and have now reached over 70 members! 

Introducing the steering committee:

Pete van Grinsven: Interim Chair

Pete is the managing director of PvG Design a small company based in Albany Village. They work in the residential and small commercial/industrial  space carrying out structural design and observation as well as on site waste water and single lot storm water design. Pete first became a registered engineer in 1976 and has worked as a builder, teacher, architectural designer and engineer. Increasing difficulty with councils recognising our ability to understand, design and control the full range of works led to our work with the Rodney Group to set up the SIG EGP. Pete is a Lead Assessor for CPeng and ENZ membership. In his spare time he builds and drives small scale live steam trains.

Gordon Hughes: Committee member

Gordon is a Chartered Engineer and is based in the G A Hughes & Associates Auckland Office at Whangaparaoa.  Gordon is experienced in civil and structural engineering with recent concentration on structural work including residential and commercial buildings, seismic assessments and retrofits, temporary works design, communication and power distribution structures, crane structural design and design of supporting structures. Work experience includes a period as a Borough Engineer at Cambridge, 10 years was managing director of  a bridge building,  piling and scaffolding company before establishing a small consulting practice in Hamilton. Gordon has been active as a PAA, served a term on CAB and the SESOC Management and Executive Committees and is a long term  member of the Waikato and Rodney engineer’s groups

Julie Elliott: Communications

Julie is a Chartered Engineer at OBD Consultants, based in Silverdale, where she enjoys her role as a team leader of an enthusiastic structural engineering team.  She has 13 years structural design experience, liaising with architects and other design consultants in the design of architectural structures, residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Julie has been a member of the Rodney Engineer's Group for a number of years and understands the importance of such groups, she hopes the GP SIG can inspire a larger engineering community uptake of such groups so more experiences can be shared.

Aaron Holland: Committee member

Aaron is a chartered engineer and is based in the LDE Warkworth office. Aaron is experienced in multiple fields including civil and structural design, project management, geotechnical engineering and environmental engineering and runs LDE’s civil team working in the public and private sector designing infrastructure, residential and commercial developments, wharves, seawalls and slip remedial works for infrastructure. Problems with recognition within councils and certification have prompted Aaron to get involved in the GP SIG with the aim of gaining recognition of Engineering General Practice as a separate field. This would simplify the recognition process enabling engineers who work in more than one field to be recognised as capable of undertaking work in those fields. For example as part of his work in the above the fields Aaron does geotechnical engineering. However he does not carry out geotechnical work to a high degree of specialisation. He would like to see his geotechnical knowledge and skills recognised for the simple stuff such as basic house foundations. Councils are moving towards requiring a specialised Geotech engineer for such work leading to unnecessary difficulties.

Ian Watson: Secretary

Ian has been a sole practitioner and General Practice engineer for 30 plus years, working from home, in mainly light structural projects but also in civil work around subdivisions and on site wastewater systems.

Prior to working independently, he worked for Beca in PNG, McConnell Dowell on civil construction, and with Portals Water Treatment on town water and wastewater plants. His Master’s Degree was in Public Health Engineering at Auckland University. He enjoys part time farming on a lifestyle block.

Jennifer Lo: Finances and record keeping

Jennifer is a Chartered Member of Engineering New Zealand and has practised in the field of geotechnical engineering in Hong Kong and New Zealand after graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 2000.  She acquired a Master Degree in Civil Infrastructural Engineering and Management from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2005 and is currently a Board Member of the New Zealand Chinese Building Industry Association.  She has worked on a wide variety of infrastructure and commercial engineering projects in both administrative and design disciplines at different stages from planning, investigation, design and review to construction.  She has experience in projects including cut and cover tunnels, bridge abutments, embankments, various types of retaining walls, ground improvement, reclamation, foundations and seismic assessment. Jennifer is a strong believer in effective collaboration as the key to project success.  She has an enthusiasm to help GP Engineers in creating a hub to connect different engineering disciplines to achieve optimal outcomes in projects. 

Our stated objectives are:

1. Promote general practice engineering 
2. Provide a forum for general practitioners to share experiences and discuss current challenges and opportunities 
3. Provide relevant professional development for general practice engineers, assessors, educators and others to support the field
4. Advocate for the interests of general practice engineers with the public and key stakeholders such as MBIE, Territorial Authorities, educators and others

Progress to date

We have already been ratified by the ENZ board and you can now find us amongst the other technical groups on the ENZ website. We have designed a logo, now accepted by ENZ and started discussions on a number of initiatives – particularly around promotion of General Practice engineering,  professional development specific to our needs and how to upskill the assessment team to recognize ‘good general practice’

Current Action 

Your steering committee has been beavering away to begin to meet the objectives and recently held a meeting to progress things.

• Julie and Jennifer are working to reserve a domain name and establish a website. We hope to incorporate a forum where ideas can be exchanged and help can be asked for. It is also intended that a platform for remote attendance at meetings can be established in time for our first AGM (hopefully in mid October)
• Aaron has been writing a BOK for civil engineering and looking at the Geotechnical BOK to adapt them for our specific needs. He has also done considerable work in the area of gaining recognition with councils for the engineering general practitioner.
• Gordon has been looking at the structural BOK, devising a QA system that is suited to the general practice engineer and working on a set of guidelines to assist members in setting up a local support group.
• Pete has been communicating with branch chairs through ENZ with the idea that visits to each of the regions by one of our committee members can be arranged over the next few months.
• Ian has been recording our meetings and keeps us all on track. He also brings the perspective of the sole practitioner to the group.

Events

An event will be held in conjunction with the Engineering New Zealand Auckland Branch shortly to help promote the concept of engineering general practice. We'd then want to roll them out around the country. 

Pete is meeting with Julie Raine – Engineering New Zealand Auckland Branch Chair – to arrange the event. A draft Agenda for the event is below: 

• Introduction - Pete
• Dealing with Councils approved lists - Aaron
• Multi-discipline issues and Geotech - Jennifer and Julie
• Sole Practitioner issues - Ian
• GP approaches to QA - Gordon

5 minutes each, followed by a Q&A session and discussion.

Web site and forum

We considered LinkedIn as method of sharing with a forum to be established on website to show upcoming events but decided that it will probably lack flexibility as we move forward. J & J will investigate the best model for the website and will report back.

AGM

A date for our first AGM will likely be set for the first half of October. It was decided that nominations for Officers and Committee will be taken by email with the call for nominations to go out by mid August, so look out for that!

A draft agenda for the AGM is as follows:

• Welcome new members
• Chairman’s report
• Treasurers report
• Report on the outcome of the email vote for officers and committee and confirm those elected for the 2019/2020 year. We have appointed Tony O’Brien of OBD consulting as Scrutineer.
• Jennifer to maintain list of members
• Present the proposed 2019/2020 budget for approval.
• Ratify the rules (the rules will be those applicable to Special Interest Groups as currently held by Engineering New Zealand)
• General business – as the next couple of months evolves we may add some specific items for discussion.

There is potential to combine the AGM with a presentation of interest to general practice engineers. More information on this to follow. 

Thank you again for joining our Special Interest Group for Engineering General Practitioners. 

Kind regards, 

Pete van Grinsven
Interim Chair 
SIG EGP

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