Chasing opportunities and helping colleagues are the key to a winning career Friday, 09 January 2015

Paul Copland of WorleyParsons - 2014 WA Technologist of the Year.Paul Copland TFIEAust CEngT has a good insight into the variety of jobs and projects that engineering professionals work on.

He’s worked at a whisky distillery, on numerous resources projects around the world, and also on various oil and gas platforms – including one where he and his co-workers had to be evacuated from following a gas explosion.

Copland is a Department Manager, Instrument, Controls, Telecommunications and Security with WorleyParsons in Perth and recently won the 2014 WA Technologist of the Year at the WA Engineering Excellence Awards.

Landing his first job in engineering was a stroke of fortune.

"I was lucky enough to work in one of the largest grain distilleries in the north-east of Scotland in the instrument maintenance department,” he says.

But with his next job several years later – on an oil platform in the North Sea – that luck nearly ran out.

"There was one time when there was an explosion on the platform I was on, and the platform was abandoned,” he says.

“Basically what happened was a gas explosion where three people were injured and the whole platform and field were shut down as they flew helicopters in.

"They got the injured people off and then they flew us back.”

He has a simple philosophy with his engineering career.

“I always wanted to get a job that was always better then the one I had,” he says.

“When I was a tradesman, I wanted a job as a foreman, When I was a foreman, I wanted a job as an engineer. When I was an engineer, I wanted a job as a lead engineer. And eventually when I became a lead engineer, I wanted a job as a chief.

“Every time I reached a plateau, I asked myself: What’s my next opportunity?

“I’ve always continued to try to develop myself.”

Sought-after mentor

Not only that, Copland is renowned for trying to bring out the best in his colleagues and is a sought-after mentor.

“I try to help people,” he says.

“Anything I think I can help somebody with to give them an opportunity, then I’ll try my best to do that.”

Over the years, he’s helped with numerous initiatives such as conducting workshops to help colleagues achieve Chartered Status by holding feedback sessions to assist them complete their Engineering Competency Claims (formerly Career Episode Reports).

He was also on the founding committee for the International Engineers Group that assists migrant engineers to adjust to Australia and their new workplaces.

Copland has been with WorleyParsons since 2006 and works in the resources area, on oil and gas, minerals and metals, and infrastructure projects.

“Effectively, it’s my job to ensure I put the right resource into the project from an engineering point of view and obviously I build my team based on our workload,” he says.

“It’s up to me to help develop the capability of the team, look at the future in terms of what kinds of people do we need to be employing for the workload we have.”

He says the highlight of his varied career has been his work with WorleyParsons: “I’m just amazed at the experiences and opportunities I’ve had since I came to WorleyParsons, it just accelerated my career and has been really good for me.”

By Tony Malkovic

Image caption: Paul Copland of WorleyParsons - 2014 WA Technologist of the Year.