Supporting professional mastery
We help our experienced consultants to chart their own career paths and equip them with the tools to succeed.
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With an established client base and a strong pipeline of work that continues to grow, consultants in our Canberra office get the opportunity to play a role in landmark projects throughout the ACT and surrounding region.
This provides the scope to continue developing their technical skillset, learn from each other in an office culture built around collaboration, and take on new challenges that emerge within our growing business.
Civil engineers Susan Beff and Chelsea Corcoran, along with surveillance officer John McCann, have seen firsthand how working at Spiire Canberra can serve as a launchpad for achieving professional satisfaction.
Career ambitions take flight
When John McCann joined the Canberra team in its infancy in 2018, he was one of a handful of core staff working to establish the new office. With extensive experience in the construction industry including six years at Icon Water, he took the leap to Spiire for a fresh challenge working across the full construction phase of projects in his role as surveillance officer.
As the Canberra team gathered momentum, quickly outgrowing their first premises and securing work on high-profile projects, John’s role on site expanded too The constant variety and opportunities to learn about different parts of the process have kept his daily work engaging.
“You’re always moving through different stages of projects and responding to each site’s specific constraints, so things change quite quickly,” he says. “You feel like you’re learning all the time; it keeps you on your toes.”
A standout professional achievement was working in an active aerodrome environment through the Taxiway Bravo Extension to increase capacity at Canberra Airport.
“There were a lot of challenges, but it was an exciting job to go in every day and felt quite surreal at times,” John says. “Coming from mostly working in the residential sector, it was a bit out of the box. Now it’s something I think about whenever I go to the airport.”
With more than five years’ experience in the role now under his belt, John says the teamwork philosophy at Spiire, which is modelled from the leadership through the whole workforce, is part of what makes the Canberra team the right fit.
“Everyone helps each other. When you’re looking for an answer, people will come back to you and genuinely try to help,” he says.
As one of a team of five construction professionals working out of the Canberra office, John says working together to troubleshoot challenges and share advice is part of their day-to-day routine.
A true team effort
Spiire’s team culture was one of the key attractions for civil engineer Chelsea Corcoran to join the Canberra office in 2020. Her experience has reinforced this sense of community – despite her first day coinciding with Australia’s first nationwide COVID-19 lockdown.
“People are really recognised and celebrated at Spiire,” she says. “If I have a passion for something, I’ve been nurtured to do it. There’s a real drive for it to be successful.”
The tangible impact of working in the built environment steered Chelsea towards studying civil engineering at university. Six years after completing her degree, she’s a Chartered Professional Engineer contributing to major projects in the Canberra region as part of our thriving team.
Chelsea enjoys the variety of work, from projects such as the Dickson Village Coles Development that will become her local shopping centre, to helping shape new neighbourhoods in Googong Township.
“In engineering you truly work as a team. Everyone relies on each other to reach a common goal,” she says.
“Culture comes down to being able to trust people. If you’ve got a really good rapport that’s built on trust, everyone will enjoy working together,” she says.
Satisfaction in developing others
Seeing the Canberra team develop is a key highlight of civil engineer Susan Beff’s time with Spiire.
“There are a few people I’ve worked with since they joined the team as Graduates. It’s so rewarding to see how far they’ve come,” Susan says. “To see them now stepping into that teaching role for others and knowing I had a part in their growth is a big achievement for me.”
When she joined the Canberra office in 2018, she was drawn to working for an employee-owned company where the people who own the business have that real connection to it. Having lived in regional centres in New South Wales and Queensland before moving to Canberra, Susan also appreciated Spiire’s position as a local consultant with staff who live and work in regional communities.
From an initial focus on the training and development of the Canberra team of civil engineers, Susan carved out a role that matched her interest in improving ways of working. Susan now applies her passion for continual improvement and technical excellence as the Practice Manager for the Civil Engineering team across the business.
“I feel like Spiire has provided me with a lot of trust and had confidence in me to focus on the back end of what we do; looking into if we can do our work better and new ways of achieving that,” she says.
This freedom to focus on the aspects of civil design she enjoys most contributes to her satisfaction in her day-to-day work.
“Ultimately we’re a group of people who genuinely get along with each other and are happy to come into work,” Susan says. “I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved here in Canberra.”
