The Young Engineer of the Year is the most hotly contested title in the New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards stable. The 2010 judging panel were flooded with entries of a uniformly high standard.

In the final component of the competition the three finalists will each be required to showcase their communication skills by giving a short public presentation on an engineering project of their choice.
The 2010 Young Engineer of the Year Finalists are Brendan Donnell, Matthew Lander and Anna Robak.
Brendan Donnell is a Structural Engineering Team Leader at Sinclair Knight Merz. Brendan won the Senior Prize in Civil Engineering in his final year at Auckland University.

Joining SKM after graduation in 2002, Brendan has been a key player in many high profile projects including the Forsythe Barr Stadium in Dunedin and the Victoria Park Tunnel Early Works Package.

Matthew Lander is an Associate – Structural Engineering at Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner in Wellington.
He has a special interest in the integration of structure with architecture and tutors students at the School of Architecture on structural engineering, as well as working with colleagues at Beca to improve their understanding of architectural values.

Matthew was the Structural Engineering Manager for the new BNZ building on Wellington’s waterfront. The wider project team included CentrePort and BNZ, Fletcher Construction, Jasmax, Tonkin &Taylor and the Beca building services and fire teams.

Anna Robak was the Opus Young Achiever of the Year in 2008 and is currently employed there as an Environmental Asset Manager focussing on economic evaluation.

Anna is also currently pursuing doctoral studies to evaluate the economic, environmental and social costs and benefits of water supply systems, with particular emphasis on trade-offs between public health benefits, environmental impacts, and wider economic benefits.

A champion rower, Anna is a Futureintech Ambassador working with young people to encourage them in to careers in engineering.

The Young Engineer of the Year Finalists will give their presentations at 6.00pm Wednesday on 6 October. The award will be presented at a black-tie dinner in Wellington on November 24th.
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Visit: http://www.nzeeawards.org.nz.