Late last year, the pipeline industry lost a legend. Fernando (Fred) Verna sadly passed away on 26 November 2025 after a long struggle with emphysema and pulmonary fibrosis.
Fred was a familiar face to many in the industry, having been a welder on pipelines since emigrating from his native Italy in 1960.
In 1968 Fred worked on the Roma to Brisbane gas pipeline, working for Theiss Brothers. Along with his friend Bob Papp, Fred raised the rate of production on the pipeline by 500 percent, resulting in most of the expat welders on the job being sent home as they didn’t want to work on hot pass or fill and cap at the pace Fred and Bob were setting.
Fred then moved to Victoria where he worked on the Geelong pipeline, the Longford to Crib Point pipeline, and many more. Fred’s 40-year career also took him to Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Germany, and offshore in Korea and the Bass Strait, to name a few.
Fred took pride in his work, and remembered with particular fondness a six-inch pipeline he helped deliver in Portland, Victoria. There, Fred welded 100km of pipeline without a single repair.
His funeral was attended by around 100 people, many of whom were his old pipeline crew.
Fred’s family held a wonderful service to celebrate his life, which concluded with the following words that felt very fitting for a man so respected in the pipeline community:
“Lower the booms
Silence the trenches
Another legend has left the right of way.”
