6 July 2004
Leeds Engineer Wins Building Services Industry Award
Neil Sutherland, who works in the Leeds office of Buro Happold, has recently been named Young Engineer of the Year at the 2004 Building Services Awards.
In addition to winning this category, Buro Happold claimed two more: Large Consultancy; and Building Services Best Practice.
Neil Sutherland emerged as 2004 Building Services Young Engineer of the Year, who, in winning this “tightly judged” award, is tipped to be one of the industry’s future leaders. Working at Buro Happold Leeds, Neil has carved a niche in his career through specialising in lighting design after completing a degree at Leeds University in Architectural Engineering. The judges said that Neil’s entry “stood out because of his passion for the subject” and for his encouragement of other young engineers in their development. His technical ability, holistic approach and real focus on delivering quality designs for clients were also praised by the judges.
““Wining these three CIBSE building services awards emphasises Buro Happold’s breadth of experience and growing strength in this increasingly important field, since it not only encompasses environmental issues such as low energy consumption but also user comfort in terms of lighting and heating. Neil Sutherland, who won the Young Engineer of the Year award, did extremely well and is representative of the committed, high calibre of staff that Buro Happold employs,” comments Tony McLaughlin, Buro Happold Building Services partner.
These awards are hotly contested by organisations and individuals involved in the building services industry. Buro Happold’s success is not only testimony to the practice’s strengths and breadth of expertise in this field but also recognises the practice to be an excellent employer, committed to staff development.
As winner of the Large Consultancy category, the judges were impressed with Buro Happold’s consistent levels of success: in 2003, the number of building services engineers it employed rose by 10% and opened its seventh office in Birmingham. The judges also recognised the practice’s major reorganisation has had a positive impact on business. By grouping staff into design studios Buro Happold introduced a new way of working, with building services and structural engineers now sitting next to each other, in a cultural change intended to foster greater collaboration between the different engineering disciplines. The practice’s independently conducted customer satisfaction surveys giving clients the chance to identify potential area s for improvement were also praised by the judges.
Buro Happold’s comprehensive “Welcome Programme”, developed to make job transitions as stress free as possible for new starters, proved to be a winner in the Best Practice category. This scheme provides a real welcome for new staff, centred on the person’s work group. It makes information available in a structured and timely way, encouraging people to get up to speed quickly. The judges also highlighted the “buddy” scheme whereby new starters are linked to an appropriate staff member to help them settle in.
Background information for editors:
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, disability design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
