Tristram Carfrae, 45
Principal and senior structural engineer with Arup
Currently involved in the design of the Beijing National Swimming Centre, Tristram Carfrae is regarded internationally as a front rank designer of sporting stadia and other award-winning lightweight long span structures. One of six Arup Fellows (out of a global staff of 6500), he has worked with leading architects on projects where the structural form is itself an aesthetic statement.
He believes that good buildings should consume less materials, energy, time and money while at the same time providing greater amenity for the client.
“Basically, I love doing ground-breaking work, and the closer I am to the front-end of the design, the better. Nevertheless, it is always gratifying to see the end result.”
Carfrae is a member of the Arup Australasia Board and is a nonexecutive member of the Arup Europe Board. He is also deputy chairman of the building section of the Arup Design and Technical Executive, which advises the global practice on all design and technical matters.
“One of my main professional tasks is to ensure the 3000 professionals we have in building design remain passionate about their work. As design firms get larger with greater responsibilities in management, risk assessment and other nonengineering tasks, there is always a risk that engineering innovation will suffer and we must ensure that we guard against this,” he said.
Engineers Australia named Carfrae as Australian Professional Engineer of the Year in 2001.

Paul Dougas, 54
Chief executive of Sinclair Knight Merz
Paul Dougas, a chemical engineer, has been chief executive of Australia’s largest privately-owned consulting engineering firm since 1996. The company now has an annual turnover of about $400 million with a staff of 3200 in offices across Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Europe and South America.
He sees as one of his main achievements the company’s international growth while remaining independent and employee owned. “I consider us very lucky to have our own business. We can manage it and then enjoy the rewards of our efforts.”
His leadership style is “primarily as a coach. There is a lot of consultation and team building which filters throughout the company,” he said.
Dougas was instrumental in introducing a successful graduate development program at SKM, which is endorsed by Engineers Australia.
He is also supporting the development of leadership talent, not only within the company, but also among Australia’s engineers in general through his chairmanship of the board of Engineers Australia’s Centre for Leadership and Management in Engineering.

Andrew Fletcher, 55
Senior vice-president of US company KBR, with responsibilities for global infrastructure and the Asia Pacific region
A civil engineer from Adelaide University, Andrew Fletcher was catapulted into his international position when KBR, the engineering and construction arm of US giant Halliburton, took over Australia’s Kinhill Engineers in 1997. The company now has about 3000 staff in Australia.
One of Fletcher’s main tasks when he took over his current position was to “forge a solid global team” from the regional groups in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific including Australia.
“Over the past three years the team has come together very well and we share our expertise between different offices around the globe. For instance, our Australian experience in bridges and precast concrete is in demand in Britain and the US,” he said from his base in Adelaide.
The biggest project for the company in Australia has been the Alice-Darwin railway. KBR was the leading member of ADrail, the consortium that built the rail link. Last month the project won the 2004 Australian Construction Achievement Award, Australia’s most prestigious construction award presented by the Australian Constructors Association and Engineers Australia.
As for upcoming new big projects in Australia, Fletcher mentioned two in which KBR hopes to take part – the construction of the new Defence headquarters in Canberra and the Gateway Bridge duplication in Brisbane.

Jonathan Jutsen, 48
President of EnVinta Corp in Chicago and executive director of Energetics in Sydney
Chemical engineer Jonathan Jutsen’s name is almost synonymous with energy savings. Since 1984 when he founded Energetics, he has played a major role in “transforming the energy management industry from a totally technical activity involving energy audits and one-off projects to a business improvement model with information management tools which deliver continuous improvement and sustained savings for companies”.
“I get a great sense of satisfaction from helping companies move from being indifferent about energy waste to being focused and committed to improving energy performance,” he said from his current base in Chicago, where he has been establishing Energetics’ US subsidiary EnVinta.
In the US the diagnostic software for energy management which he designed “has become a de facto standard for energy management. It has been used by more than 1000 companies,” he said.
Jutsen is currently completing a book about energy waste in the US, which shows “how the US is heading for a major energy crisis through extraordinarily wasteful practices and an appalling lack of leadership”.
Outside his work Jutsen has initiated a project to establish a children’s museum in Sydney. “When I return to Sydney I will be spending a lot more time on this exciting project,” he said.

Barry Norman, 54
Managing director of Earth Tech Australia; president of Earth Tech Asia Pacific
In the mid1990s, Barry Norman became managing director of Fisher Stewart, an Australian consulting company with revenue of about $12 million a year. In January 2002 the company was sold to USbased Earth Tech as part of a strategic decision to diversify the business into new areas. Norman is now managing director of Earth Tech Australia, with a staff of about 100 and revenue of $100 million a year, and responsible for the company’s operations in China, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, bringing in another $50 million a year.
“The sale of our business to Earth Tech was not something we had to do, it was a strategic decision,” he explained. “Consulting is a relentless business and we wanted to be something other than just continuing to work on time rates. We have moved into an area where we now own and operate infrastructure. Instead of being at the mercy of design/construct contractors, we are a design/construct contractor.
“I am most proud of being in a position of influence in a successful company that had the foresight to change its lines of business and move where the overall industry is heading.”
Norman is now looking to grow the business more and continue to consolidate its operations in the AsiaPacific region.
“My aim is to better integrate technology between our Asian and Australian operations. We have a lot of technical skills here in Australia that we could use in our Asian business, and vice versa,” he said.

Harry Poulos, 64
Senior principal of Coffey Partners International and Coffey Geosciences, and professor emeritus of University of Sydney
Geotechnical engineer Professor Harry Poulos has a stream of prizes and awards, both nationally and internationally, recognising prominence in his field. Earlier this year he was invited to deliver the American Society of Civil Engineers annual Terzaghi lecture. German born Karl Terzaghi, who wrote his seminal work in 1925 and died in 1963, is regarded as the founder of soil mechanics.
Poulos is a specialist in piling and pile group behaviour in difficult ground.
“I am most interested in how piles work and how we can create the methods for designing them better,” he said.
From the mid-1960s he had a distinguished academic career, rising from lecturer to professor of civil engineering and head of the School of Civil and Mining Engineering at Sydney University.
From 1988 until 1992, he split his time between academia and consulting, joining Coffey Partners International. He is now a senior principal of Coffey Geo-sciences, but has maintained his links with Sydney University as an emeritus professor.
He believes there should be a closer connection between academia and practice, stating that his move to a dual career 16 years ago was one of the best decisions he has made.

Nigel Robinson, 50
Group chief executive of Maunsell
Nigel Robinson is group chief executive of Maunsell and its subsidiaries in Australia, New Zealand, Middle East and parts of Asia. He cites one of his greatest achievements as helping the company closely merge with its parent Aecom.
“Aecom is an LAbased private company with 17,000 staff and annual revenue of US$2 billion,” he explained. “Locally, we have a revenue of about $220 million a year and 2000 staff.” This is up from 450 staff since he became chief.
Robinson has a passion for running an engineering business. “It is one of the few industries where you can see the direct benefits it brings to the community,” he said.
“For example, Maunsell was involved with the fixed crossings over the Mekong River in Vietnam. I went there for the opening of the bridges, and over one million Vietnamese people turned up, cheering us, obviously grateful for the work we had done.”

David Singleton, 54
Director of the Arup Group Board, leading the firm’s Global Infrastructure Business, as well as its Sustainability Portfolio
After being chairman and chief executive of Arup Australasia in Melbourne for eight years, David Singleton this year became the leader of the international Arup Group’s Global Infrastructure Business, one of the group’s three business sectors. He is also responsible for the company’s Sustainability Portfolio. Due to his new role he divides his time between London and Melbourne.
Arup has about 6500 staff working in more than 100 countries.
Singleton’s legacy in Australia is a multidisciplinary practice with more than 550 staff. Under his leadership the firm expanded into transportation planning and civil engineering infrastructure.
He said a turning point for the company in Australia was its bid for the city link project in the mid-1990s in Melbourne, which was one of the largest infrastructure projects in Australia at the time. “Even though we didn’t win the contract, the bid brought the company together on a national level and prepared us to win other infrastructure contracts later on.”
Singleton has been a champion for the advancement of women in the industry. In the past three years Arup was named an Employer of Choice for Women by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency.
He also led the establishment of Arup’s Community Partnering Program. One of the beneficiaries at present is the Smith Family.
His contribution to the profession included the chairmanship of Engineers Australia’s Civil College from 1995 to 1998 and the presidency of the ACEA from 2000 to 2002.
Currently he is chair of the Australian Construction Industry Forum, the National Engineering Registration Board and the Building Sector Board for SAI Global.

John Wertheimer, 66
Managing partner of John Wertheimer Consultants
Colonel John Wertheimer, a civil engineer, is not only the founder of two consulting firms, John Wertheimer Consultants and Asia Pacific Rail in Melbourne, but is also involved in a number of military and community organisations.
Both companies have strong expertise in railways, particularly in track, signalling and rolling stock. For instance, they provided project management for the $300 million automated ticketing system for Melbourne’s trams, trains and buses, and the country standard gauge conversion in Victoria.
As for his community and military activities, Wertheimer is a founding member and trustee of the Committee for Melbourne, chairman of the Royal Australian Engineers Foundation, chairman of the Order of Australia Association in Victoria and patron of the Royal Australian Engineers Vietnam Association, to name but a few.
Among the highlights in his career were commanding the 17 Construction Squadron Group in Vietnam in 1969 and leading the critical path programming team for the Sydney Opera House construction.