Article written by Chris Stoltz FIEAust CPEng EngExec NER, Engineers Australia Victorian President.
As President of Victoria, one of my primary responsibilities is to engage in strategic dialogue with the most influential academic, engineering and political decision-makers across our great State.
Our newest facility has been the ideal backdrop to many of these discussions, having played host to the Governor of Victoria, former Premier Jeff Kennett, McConnell Dowell CEO Scott Cummins and the new Pro Vice-Chancellor for Industry and Development at Deakin University, Professor Guy Littlefair, among others.
If you haven’t already been here, please come to Level 31 600 Bourke Street. Maybe arrange to meet someone here so you can show it off to them too! There’s lots of meeting spaces, coffee, wi-fi and friendly people to help. It’s been designed as a meeting place for members. The place is humming almost every evening with high-level CPD events and other training activities. And for four months we’ve hosted here in our Innovation Lab a couple of 22 year-old entrepreneurs who, together with 20 young “interns”, created a robot and a phone app to assist visually impaired people. You can see something of what they achieved here.
I’ve also spent time getting out and about. I’ve made it one of my goals to spend my time with our members listening to them tell me of their successes and aspirations as well as hear what Engineers Australia can do better. I really enjoyed my recent visit to Sunraysia where Scott Barnes and his committee put on a fabulous programme. We first inspected the $120million Sunraysia Modernisation Project which is replacing irrigation channels with pipelines and will result in more efficient water delivery to irrigators and an increased investment in irrigated agriculture for the region. You might like to see what the local paper said on page 9 of The Mildura Weekly. After that, Scott lead a site visit of the refurbished Merbein pump station, followed a BBQ sponsored by Lower Murray Water. I really enjoyed meeting those Sunraysia engineers … both young and not-so-young!
I also visited Horsham recently to meet with the committee and congratulate them on their interesting and comprehensive CPD programme. I hope to work with group there to help them attract engineers from further afield. I’m also hoping we can attract more younger engineers and also engineers who are not yet members.
Bendigo has also attracted me a number of times. We have launched a “Chartered City” programme in Bendigo through which will take a number of our engineers through the process of achieving CPEng accreditation. The Bendigo group has also prepared a comprehensive CPD programme, and has built upon the strong support it receives from La Trobe University. Together with EA National President John McIntosh, I will be visiting Bendigo again shortly to learn more about three engineering manufacturing businesses that are growing strongly by being innovative in their adoption of new technology and their approach to global markets.
It won’t be long before I visit the Latrobe Valley. Recently Latrobe City Council heralded its ambition of becoming the Engineering Capital of Australia. If you want to get a sense of what that might look like, I encourage you to look at Council’s draft Economic Development Strategy 2016 – 2021. I wrote a letter to Mayor Rossiter congratulating him on such a bold vision.
If you haven’t noticed by now, a lot of my activity and attention has been very much focussed outside of Melbourne. That’s because we are urging our leaders to create a vision for Victoria to become a State of Successful Next Century Cities. Simply put, we believe the engineering and economic challenges facing this State will not be met with a Melbourne-centric approach. In March, Engineers Australia lodged a submission to Infrastructure Victoria’s 30-year Strategy in which we emphasised this very point.
In future, each time I am at a meeting representing Engineers Australia’s Victoria members, I will not be making the distinction between Melbourne and ‘regional’ Victoria. Rather, I will be highlighting the potential of connecting our State in a way that enhances our liveability and ensures we always remain the place to be!