Quick Chat with Dr John Macintosh
Dr John Macintosh HonFIEAust CPEng NER RPEQ was the recipient of the Professional Engineer of the Year Award at the recent Australian Engineering Excellence Awards (AEEA) Queensland 2016.
What is the significance of your award win to you and your career?
The award is significant in identifying that our profession recognises services to the community.
What is your current job title and function?
I am a Director and Principal Water Engineer at Water Solutions, a small specialist water engineering consultancy based in Kenmore, Brisbane.
Why are you an engineer?
I am a technical person and it’s through engineering that I have gained the ability and insight into better understanding the world around me.
What are you working on now?
I am on an independent panel of experts overseeing the Brisbane River Catchments Flood study. The technology being applied is cutting-edge and very exciting.
I also participated in a project called the Meander Dam Integrated Water Management System, along with Entura and Tasmanian Irrigation Pty Ltd, that won an AEEA Tasmania Award 2016.
Most challenging or interesting project you’ve ever worked on?
The most challenging and interesting project I have worked on was last year when I was the flood modelling engineer for the Grantham Commission of Enquiry into the 2011 Grantham flood. The community required closure to the tragedy. The work was challenging because it needed to be done thoroughly and presented in a manner and language that the community could understand with confidence.
Any advice for young engineers just starting their career?
Get involved, never miss an opportunity, expand your abilities and make a difference. Engineers Australia is a wonderful platform to achieve just that.
Engineers can save the world. Who would you want on your project team with you?
Bob Dylan because it’s all about honest communication.
If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you like to have with you?
My Leatherman tool is all I would need.
If you could have dinner with anyone, past or present, who would it be?
Albert Einstein because he was so ahead of his time and is still ahead of our time now.
What is the most recent book you read?
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.
What was the last movie you went to see?
Gods of Egypt, which my daughter, Fiona, was the second assistant editor on.
Why are you an Engineers Australia member?
Because I believe in our engineering community and because Engineers Australia puts me in contact with my peers as colleagues and not as competitors.
If you could take a year off to study anything, what would it be?
I achieved this when I completed my PhD in river hydraulics. As a young engineer, I asked my mentor Tom Connor (former Engineers Australia National President) the correct way of undertaking an analysis of water flows in natural channels and he replied that neither way was correct. The specific problem had not been solved, so years later I answered the problem myself through PhD studies.
How do you achieve work/life balance?
I rely on my wife.
Main image: Kirar Weir, Eidsvold, Qld under construction (Water Solutions were engineers for the client, Burnett Water).
Inset image: Dr John Macintosh HonFIEAust CPEng NER RPEQ.