Setting The Standard For Engineering Excellence

MEDIA RELEASE

21 November 2007

Setting The Standard For Engineering Excellence

Global engineering services firm Maunsell, is again setting the industry standard in engineering excellence with two of its top engineers beating off applicants from around the country to win prestigious awards.

Transportation engineers George Jasonsmith and Bridget Burdett were presented with awards at the Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ) Traffic Group’s Traffic Management Workshop and Conference held in Tauranga recently.

George Jasonsmith, a Senior Consultant in Maunsell’s Christchurch office was awarded the sought after 3M Traffic Safety Innovation Award, the only one of its kind awarded by 3M worldwide.

Mr Jasonsmith developed a method of recording and prioritising safety deficiencies in the road using an Excel spreadsheet. The solution makes use of existing data and prioritises deficiencies based on risk reduction and will be the key component of future Safety Management Systems. This application is available free via the Land Transport NZ website.

Mr Jasonsmith thought that considering the comparatively small scale of the project, winning would be a long shot.

“Never before has anything other than a big, physically constructed project won this award. Our project was neither big nor physical, so we really bucked the trend winning it this time round.”

As part of his prize Mr Jasonsmith will travel to 3M’s head office in Minnesota and then on to the Traffic Engineering Conference in Miami. Mr Jasonsmith also received an impressive 9kg brass trophy.

Also heading abroad is Transportation Engineer from Maunsell’s Hamilton office, Bridget Burdett, awarded a $10,000 IPENZ Transportation Group Study Award to carry out research for her thesis.

Miss Burdett will spend four weeks travelling around Europe talking to leading researchers and transportation engineers, where she plans to review overseas approaches to the issue of rural road design and speed management.

“I think it’s important to draw on expertise from outside your local knowledge base. This grant provides me with such an amazing opportunity to bring back leading research and information to New Zealand and help advance and improve our roads’ safety.”

Miss Burdett already has several speaking opportunities and article requests lined up to present her findings when she returns.

Maunsell NZ Regional Director Dean Kimpton says, “Maunsell strongly supports and encourages extra-curricular developmental opportunities and I am delighted to see George and Bridget recognised by their peers for their outstanding engineering work.”

Maunsell has offices in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Welling and Christchurch and is one of the fastest growing engineering consulting firms in the Asia Pacific Region.

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