Brandon Olver has been working with us for 9 and a half years, building a team, achieving his goals, and is now our key personnel in Woods’ Napier office. Read Brandon’s Employee story to see how he started and where he is at in his career journey as an Associate Engineer.

Taking the long way, not the wrong way.

I ended up ‘falling’ into engineering. Long story short; Life takes some serious turns. Though it wasn’t my original career choice, I soon learned that I was well suited to engineering. It had all the qualities I enjoyed, but I had never considered it. I eventually committed to a 4-year cadetship which solidified my trajectory in an industry I am now loving. I completed my New Zealand Diploma in Engineering, straight after that, I achieved my Chartered Member (Engineering Technologist) status.

It took a long time, but I knew it was my only real option to becoming an Engineer and I don’t regret it.

I’ve now been working with Woods for 9 and a half years as an Engineer, then Associate Engineer after achieving my CPEng Chartership. Though I have a strong sense of direction, I still valued the support that Woods offered me. Woods helped me prepare for my interview, quality checked my application, and catered for the projects and knowledge I needed to achieve CPEng.

It’s one thing for a company to pay for a course, but it’s another thing to give extra time off for assignments, to encourage your team to help relieve pressures, and to line up other workmate’s courses so you’re in it together.

Strengths as an Engineer

Engineering ticks a lot of boxes for me though I think my greatest strength tends to be a lot of engineer’s weakness – Organisation. When projects get messy and things inevitably change, it’s helpful to be able to rely on my own structure to ground myself.

I find that, having the ability and willingness to pick up uncompleted projects and see them through saves a lot of projects and protects client outcomes.

Being able to clearly separate my work life from my home life is what makes hard days easy to get through. I don’t take work home with me and fully enjoy my home life when I’m not in the office. I put a lot of energy into client relationships and client work so when I come home it’s very easy to relax and let ‘work-mode’ rest.

One thing I thought would be a headache was developing and leading a team. It turns out I’m quite passionate about it and am very proud of the team I’ve built for Milldale Stage 6.

Goals and Successes

Pointing out one achievement doesn’t feel appropriate! I’ve worked on some really cool projects with Woods that I consider career defining for a lot of people. Woods, in particular works on so many good projects that it’s hard to point out just one.

After my diploma, my goal was to involve myself in the Southeastern Highway. Though this project seized I was able to learn a lot from the time I spent working in it.

My next goal was to work on large scale land development projects which I am currently doing. Milldale has come with a lot of different challenges as well as a lot of innovative solutions. With this largescale project Woods can make a significant impact and influence on designs within the neighbourhood. Our objective is to provide the best possible outcome for the precinct and for families that are and will become a part of the community.

Now that I’ve relocated to Napier my goals have shifted towards growing and developing engineers within regional New Zealand as opposed to our major cities. I aim to be present and influential when it comes to catering for immigration and the inevitable growth of New Zealand’s regions.

Besides the opportunities I have had at Woods, a lot of my future successes came from a half-hour session with Daniel Williams who has always been a big supporter of everyone’s career growth regardless of their profession.

Relocating to Napier

Because of the open-door policy Woods has with our General Managers and Directors it was easy to have different conversations about our new Napier office before officially discussing the possibility of relocating.

Woods supported me with the move, providing an extra work vehicle and sorting accommodation to make the move smoother.

There are a lot of opportunities in Hawkes Bay with TREC rebuilds and new development lots, but more importantly, moving to Napier aligns with my goals of creating a team outside of Auckland and developing great New Zealand Engineers in the Regions. Living here now you can really see how present the devastation of Cyclone Gabriel still is and what a monumental but important job it is to rebuild what was lost.

Everyone is really nice here in Napier. My wife and I are both very keen to get more involved in the community and make more friends. There is heaps for us to explore down here and are particularly excited to rent E-Bikes and tour Napier’s cycle paths.

We had a large support base in Auckland which was difficult to leave behind, but we are now closer to family and are excited to provide a place to stay for our visiting friends. No bridges are burnt, and we are grateful to have had this opportunity.

Find out where Woods can take you at our careers page.