How long have you been working in the pipeline industry?
17 years. I started working for Mitchell Water in 1994 when back then there was just five of us in total.
What has been your favourite project to work on and why?
The Wimmera Mallee Pipeline Project (WMPP). In this industry you tend to travel around a lot, but the WMPP was the first job in a while where we stayed in the one place for longer than a few months.
The project took about three years, so that’s a long time to be in the same town, but Horsham had a lot to offer.
The project was demanding and has to be the biggest job I’ve ever been involved in. To keep up morale, we’d have lawn bowl nights and so on, with everyone from out in the field and all the office staff. It was just a great way to let your hair down and catch up with everyone.
The amount of pipe we got in the ground each day was unbelievable. To think we put in the ground about 8,000 km of pipe in
three years blows my mind sometimes.
It was a very significant and rewarding project and I’m proud to say I played a part in helping to drought-proof the Wimmera Mallee area.
Can you outline a typical day in the field?
We basically start every day off with a pre-start meeting where we go over what we’d like to achieve that day and set out
our targets.
Then the machines are checked and fired up, making sure the global positioning systems are all working. Following that, the trencher will start to dig as soon as possible. While it gets a bit of a head-start, the guys will string the pipe out until it’s time to start laying it in the trench once the trencher is far enough away.
We don’t leave any trench open overnight so I just keep an eye on the trencher to make sure it doesn’t get too far ahead of the laying crew. I’ll also help out on fittings assemblies as we get to them.
Toward the end of the day I’ll meet up with the Pipeline Superintendent for a brief meeting about the day’s productivity and talk about what’s coming up the following day.
Who do you look up to in the industry and why? Or, who have you found to be a role model and why?
I have always been very grateful to Wayne Mitchell for giving me a go all those years ago, because I obviously wouldn’t be where I am today without that opportunity.
Wayne’s brother, Tony Mitchell, pretty much taught me everything I know about pipelaying. I’ve lost count of how many projects we’ve actually worked on together, but the knowledge he passed on to me over the years was priceless.
As I have progressed to the role of Foreman, Paul Radburn has been a big help to me in providing pointers or telling me about his past experiences. We’ve got a lot of younger guys coming up through the ranks, so I hope that one day I will have a similar impact on some of them as these three men have had on me.
Do you have any anecdotes of activities in the field to share?
I’ve got quite a few stories to tell, but it’s probably best they not be printed in such a publication as this! I will say that you meet quite a few different characters around the traps and it’s the good ones that make going to work easier.
In particular I’ve worked with a bloke by the name of Shane Heaysman for many years now and he never fails to make me laugh on a daily basis. He’s got a chuckle that’s contagious and he’ll get you laughing every time.
“The amount of pipe we got in the ground each day was unbelievable. To think we put in the ground about 8,000 km of pipe in three years blows my mind sometimes.”