CIBSE announces young engineer of the year
CIBSE’s young engineer of the year for 2015, the twentieth year of this award scheme, is Ryan Rodrigues of Hurleypalmerflatt. He won out against eight other finalists with his presentation on ‘How collaboration and teamwork can enhance my work as an engineer’. As this year’s young engineer of the year, he will be travelling to the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) 2016 winter conference in Orlando, USA.
Starting his presentation by casting himself as ‘Ryan the engineer’, he said, ‘My role as an engineer is solving problems. That is what I am paid to do. It’s what I like to do, and it is why I came into the industry in the first place.
‘The main goal of the engineer is to solve problems. The better you are at solving problems, the better you are as an engineer.’
It was in improving the three criteria that determine how effective and engineering solution is — quality, cost and time — that Ryan Rodrigues introduced the concepts of collaboration and teamwork.
He referred to the wide range of team members with such skills as mechanical engineering, structural engineering, project management and cost consultancy and knowledge can be improved by approaches such as face-to-face discussion and network conferencing. ‘We can share ideas, we can debate, and the end result is that my knowledge increases.’
The end result, he argues is that a better solution can be achieved to the problem in hand by being technically superior, taking time out of the programme and costing less.
Not only can a better solution be achieved, but he himself will have improved as an engineer — making himself better at solving problems.
He concluded, ‘The better you are at solving problems, the better you are as an engineer.’
This 20th-anniversary event was attended by many previous winners — including the very first (Kevin Mitchell from 1996) and last year’s winner Emilia Targonska. The awards seek to reward the innovative thinking, hard work and skill that is necessary to secure a bright future for the built environment.
Supported by three international engineering institutions — CIBSE, Sponsored by Andrews Water Heaters, Ruskin Air Management and Schneider Electric, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, & Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, these awards are sponsored by Andrews Water Heaters, Ruskin Air Management and Schneider Electric. They are also supported by the CIBSE Patrons, a group of businesses who collaborate to give financial and technical backing to CIBSE.
