Yet another success story for one of our Construction Engineering Masters students.
This award is made to a young person, less than 35 years of age, who is considered to have provided a significant active role within their branch by their contribution to an interesting or notable project. The aim of the award is to celebrate individual excellence in Transport Planning and / or Civil Engineering within the highways and transportation field.
Halcrow fielded two sting candidates in the final with Stefan wood from their York Office and Richard Key from the Leeds office. This year's competition for the award was said to be the strongest yet and so an additional four commended awards were given.
Richard graduated in 2007 and became a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in spring 2012. Since September 2011 he has also been studying for a second Masters degree (Mst) in Construction Engineering here at the Laing O'Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering and Technology.
Since July 2010 Richard has been working on the Highways Agency's M1 Junction 39 to 42 Managed Motorway project. This £185m scheme uses the latest Managed Motorway techniques to make journeys more reliable by controlling traffic flows more effectively through the use of overhead gantries, lane specific signals, and driver information signs. The hard shoulder is used as an additional live traffic lane to give an additional capacity. Managed Motorways support the economy by reducing the number of traditional widening schemes, creating a better return on investment and increasing safety at a national level.
Richard's current role as Deputy Project Manager is very much client facing. His work involves close liaison with the HA Project Manager and her team. When Halcrow senior managers recently met with Highways Agency senior managers to get feedback on project performance, Richard was named a key player in the success of the project to date.
Mike Birch, Halcrow's Client Director said "Both Richard and Stefan have demonstrated exceptional commitment and significant contributions to key Halcrow projects. Already recognised by the company's own staff recognition awards this was a fantastic opportunity to promote their work across the industry. On the night is was Richard who came our on top, against stiff competition, but both should be extremely proud of their achievements."
Neil Stewart, Regional Practice Manager for Highways UK, added his congratulations, noting "Richard and Stefan embody all that is best in our young engineers, they demonstrated once again a high dose of professionalism and technical competence allied to excellent communication skills and no small measure of personal confidence! It's really great to see our young engineers putting themselves foreword and doing so well against such stiff competition, well done to both!"
(Article courtesy of Halcrow Group Ltd.)
On behalf of the CEM team we congratulate Richard for his outstanding success!