In my book ‘ Clarinets, Pipelines and Unforeseen Places’ I reflect on a critical career change.I had just returned from a bad experience in the jungles of Suluwesi Indonesia.

“………On return, I asked my boss, Kevin Napier, for another assignment. Kevin was sympathetic, and we discussed the various projects in the office. I wrote some clean-up reports for Indonesia and waited. A week later Kevin came to my office with an unusual request. ‘Grahame, you are the only person in the group with computer modelling experience. We have won a contract in joint venture with an American company from Oklahoma, Williams Bros (WB), to build a pipeline to carry natural gas from Bass Strait in Victoria to Sydney along the east coast. They were looking for someone with computer experience to work with the Tulsa engineers, to run computer models for the transmission design studies. Is it something you would like to consider?’

After the misery of Indonesia, this was wonderful. I was keen to work with the Americans, and I accepted on the spot. I had been out of the design role for about five years but had continued to try to understand the design processes, because my project structuring duties demanded it. In fact, I had been exposed to all the disciplines and the interactions required to deliver a complete design. Gas transmission technology would be an exciting new area.

I had spent about six years learning about the structure of projects. How do they start, who are the players and how they are managed. The railways had almost no management systems. They proceeded at their own pace and sometimes responded to prodding if the politics demanded. I was pleased to experiment with new skills from my studies, but I was in uncharted waters. The move to the commercial world snapped me into a new reality. Cost and time needed close attention. Working with suppliers and subcontractors and second guessing their abilities was paramount. Understanding construction methodologies and using new techniques was the difference between success and failure. I felt I had a good grasp until I went to Melbourne and walked into the world of consulting engineering. It was a world in which I would eventually complete my full-time career but at the outset I was nonplussed. I had acquired new skills in computing and system analysis and been told the old ways were proven and best. I was confronted with an elitist attitude I had never struck before.

Next I was thrown into a project that had died before it started. I was asked to set up control systems for a contractor who was about to be dismissed. It’s a bit like wading into a swamp that has mud underfoot. It looks OK on the surface, but you aren’t going to get very far walking.

I was fortunate to be presented with a new direction and luck was smiling at me. My next assignment took me into the positive world of new ideas and an industry that was about to change the world radically for the next decade. ”

The book tracks my new direction and explains the opportunities that can present for engineers building a career.