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News | Archives Philip Hamblin, aged 31, is just the sort of skilled engineer moving
to Nelson from overseas that the politicians talk about. “Since I had only been in New Zealand a relatively short time I gave my presentation on a scheme I worked on in Wales. My presentation entitled; “Soil nailing of Retaining Walls – A5 Nant Ffrancon”, described a scheme I worked on in 1995 to stabilise and strengthen historic retaining walls constructed between 1815 and 1830 by Thomas Telford. I was working for the Gwynedd County Council in North Wales. It did have some similarities to New Zealand in so far as the scheme was within a National Park and therefore there were a large amount of environmental and aesthetic constraints,” he said. The IPENZ presentation evening, held on Thursday, 30 June at the Rai Valley Tavern, was Philip’s first introduction to the IPENZ branch. “The Nelson/Marlborough members travel from all over the region and as the venue changes it usually means someone has a three hour round trip to contend with,” he said. Philip particularly chose New Zealand as a destination, but Nelson chose him. “I was in Bristol and saw some engineering jobs advertised in Trade
magazines back in the UK. I then went to the Expo in London and saw the
New Zealand stand, and since I had already travelled to New Zealand a
few years back I was keen to take the next step,” he said. “I asked what they had other than Auckland and there was one job at the Nelson City Council on offer – so I had the interview via phone and here I am four months later,” he said. Philip had travelled through Nelson during his OE a couple of years ago so he knew what sort of lifestyle Nelson had to offer. Philip now works for the Nelson City Council as Projects Engineer within the Technical Services Section responsible for the design and construction of the Council’s capital works schemes. He had previously worked for eight years in the Bristol office of Atkins, a UK engineering consultancy, and prior to that with Gwynedd County Council in North Wales. Philip is on a work-to-residence visa and hopes to be a fully fledged resident in two years. Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand, (IPENZ) Nelson/Marlborough Young Engineers Presentations Competition.
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Welsh
engineer beats local competition 
