The Rockhampton Regional Group was pleased to invite engineers and industry to attend the Queensland Central Engineering Conference which was held in Rockhampton on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th August 2012, at Central Queensland University in Rockhampton.

The Central Queensland Engineering Conference is held each year providing a relaxed forum for the exchange of ideas and learning. The conference aims to recognise and celebrate the contribution of all those engineers, technologists and associates who work and live in regional Australia. In particular, keynote addresses, panel sessions and papers were presented in the following topic areas:

• Infrastructure development
• Natural disaster management
• Natural disaster risk mitigation
• Project management in cross cultural environments
• Education and professional development
• Managing resources for sustainable development
• Operation and maintenance management
• Building regional capabilities
• Energy and environment

The conference's three keynote speakers included:

Graeme Newton -

Graeme was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Queensland Reconstruction Authority in January 2011 and brings to the role more than ten years of experience as Senior Executive in the semi-Government and Government sectors - most recently as the State's Coordinator-General and Director General  of the Department of Infrastructure and Planning.

Elizabeth Taylor -

After graduating as a civil engineer Elizabeth worked for 10 years with the Maritime Services Board of NSW in design, and then construction management. In 2009 she resigned from the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Health, CQUniversity, continuing as an Emeritus Professor of the University.

From 2003 to 2011 Elizabeth was Chair of the Board of Professional Engineers of Queensland and is presently Chair of the Board of Engineers Media and Chair of RedR Australia. Elizabeth has also completed a law degree.

Chris Hawker -

Chris joined the University of Cantebury in mid 2006 from his previous role as a senior manager in local Government. Chris' role of Group Manager, Facilities & Operational Services, includes joint responsibility for emergency preparedness, and response and business continuity planning. Between 2006 and September 2010, Chris worked to overhaul and rebuild the University's ability to respond to, and recover from, any critical incident response that might affect the university. On September 4th, 2010, that effort became the basis for a real critical incident response. Chris assumed his role in the response structure as Primary Incident Controller for the first time, but has now led the University's response team for multiple events over the last two years.

Many more inspiring speakers presented a variety of interesting topics on day one of the Rockhampton conference. On day two of the conference a professional development workshop was conducted which included three sessions covering the following topics:

• Board of Professional Engineers - Registration in Queensland
• Engineers Australia - How to apply for stage 2 assessment to become chartered or registered
• Centre for Engineering Leadership Management

We look forward to announcing the host city and future date for another successful Qld Central Regional Engineering Conference in 2013.

Engineers Australia wishes to thank the conference sponsors for their continued committment and support.