The News

Maori in the Middle East

When my wife Charmaine and I packed our bags and set off for Dubai in April 2008, the prospect of working in a brand new city built in the desert seemed very surreal. The main attraction of my desire to work in Dubai, was to work on amazing multi-storey buildings that pushed the boundaries of architectural and engineering limits.

Upon arrival in Dubai, I was not disappointed with the sheer size and scale of projects that I would be in charge of getting built – one US$100M 50+ storey hotel & office tower fit out, and a three tower 44-storey mixed use US$300M development consisting of hotel, office and residential towers. At first these dual project challenges proved quite daunting for a Maori Tongan engineer 17 hours flying time away from home, with no prior working experience overseas and whose previous largest project was an NZ$80M airport redevelopment. However, after four months of getting to know the various contractors, consultants, client representatives, and local authority representatives, I was well on the way to adding value to these projects through my arrangement of regular face-to-face meetings with each of these stakeholders. It was quite surprising to find that nearly all of the stakeholders I had to deal with on a regular basis enjoyed my kiwi style of straight talking advice while still being polite both in face to face interaction and in written correspondence. This consistent kiwi style was in stark contrast to project managers and engineers from the Middle East who were very aggressive during meetings but rather too polite or meek in written correspondence and at the other opposite end of the spectrum where western engineers could be quite blunt in written correspondence but rather timid during meetings. My next 16 months in Dubai would be characterized by negotiating this fine line of consistent enforcement and fairness to all parties on contractual matters.

Read more: SPPEEx ENGINEERS ABROAD: Tyrone Newson

SPPEEx caught up with talented Tongan national Rossier Kaufusi to find out what attracted him to Engineering.  Here's the details of that inteview:

Ok so a bit of background about myself, I was born in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, moved to NZ when I was little. I attended Stanhope Road School (Mt Wellington) where I was a house captain, then went to Auckland Boys Grammar where I was involved in their Swimming team, Athletics team, Volleyball, Rugby and the Tongan group (3rd form to 7th form). In my last year I was fortunate enough to be named as one of the Head Prefects, as well as captain of my rugby team and Tongan Leader. Currently, I am at The University of Auckland completing my final year of a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) specialising in Civil and Environmental. I was a swimming coach but had to stop because of the work load, however I'm still playing rugby (for College Rifles and the Engineering Eagles).I am a SPIES member actively involved in promoting engineering to high school students.

Highlights from SPPEEx Mid-Winter Dinner 7th September 2011 at Monsoon Poon

SPPEEx Rugby Fanatics swarmed upon south east Asian restaurant Monsoon Poon to vocalize their support for their favourite rugby teams just days before the opening of the rugby world cup tournament.  We were privileged to have the support of ANZ bank who provided a supporters pack for our raffle as well as the presence of faculty staff and students from University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology to enjoy the evening with us.  Support for the All Blacks and the Pacific Island teams was evident !!

Special thanks to our supporters and sponsors:

ANZ Bank, Kaiarahi Maori & Pacific Faculty of Engineering University of Auckland, SPIES,

Auckland University of Technology, Murray & Vanessa Smallfield and Pacific Islands Trade & Invest 

For the last couple of years I’ve been based in California working within the USA Medical Device Industry.  The USA has the largest medical device industry and is worth over $150B. With the medical device industry being so large here, it was apparent that the opportunities within the biomedical field were multiplied many times over when coming from NZ to the USA.

SPPEEx members make it two in a row, as they make their mark as future pacific leaders with Nadeen Papalii being awarded the Prime Ministers Pacific Youth Leadership Award for 2011.