Golden Shovel Award Winners Announced 2022

Congratulations to our 2022 Golden Shovel Award Winners Ronan Woods (Perth CMT Lab) and Wade Els (Trilab Brisbane Lab).

Each year Construction Sciences looks to recognise overall stand-out employees with the Golden Shovel Award.

The Golden Shovel Award recognises outstanding employees who bring positivity, safety consciousness, and professionalism to their workplace. These exceptional individuals contribute to the growth of our business with their innovative ideas and hard work.

Golden Shovel recipients will be treated to a fully paid trip to North America, where they will experience a week in the life of our partner companies, Raba Kistner or T2 Utility Engineers.

Congratulations to both Ronan and Wade for a well deserved win!

Ronan Woods, Laboratory Manager – Gosnells, WA.

Western Australia Area Manager Paul O’Brien said Ronan has a positive attitude and alignment with company values, and has invested a significant amount of his time and effort into his career progression.

“Ronan is our Gosnells Laboratory Manager and has been with the company for over 10 years now. He started out as a Trainee and has continuously applied himself to his work, progressively making his way up through the ranks, whilst studying and obtaining both his Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Laboratory Technology,” Paul said.

“Ronan has amassed an extensive scope of technical capabilities which covers a large range of NATA Signatory test methods. He has gone through the full scale of position grades from bottom to top, including Technician, Senior Tech, Signatory, Annex Lab Manager, Base Lab Deputy Manager and now Base Laboratory Manager, and as a consequence maintains a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of both our business and the wider CMT industry.

“I’ve been in the CMT game a long time and can genuinely say that he is a phenomenal asset to Construction Sciences and if people see Ronan get this award and acknowledgement, then they’ll know what it takes to be a high achiever. Ronan is a real future leader for the business and I look forward to him being part of the team for many years to come.”

Wade Els, Specialised Testing Supervisor – Geebung, QLD.

Trilab Rock Specialised Testing Laboratory Manager Joshua Rodriguez Rasmussen said Wade ensures that we are meeting our clients expected turnaround times and clients really appreciate his interaction with them as he always keeps them up to date with the process of the test.

“Wade joined Trilab in early 2017 starting out doing soil preparation, compaction tests and quality tests. Wade’s strength is his eagerness to learn and his inquisitive nature to ask why we perform tests. This resulted in his promotions over the past years to supervisor. His attention to detail is brilliant, which is a must when carrying out engineering tests such as triaxials, Triaxial permeabilities, oedometers and CSLs,” Joshua said.

“He is quite methodical when talking to other lab managers in regard to understanding why we carry out that particular test. He really enjoys mentoring staff that reports to him and will go out of his way to assist any technician in the lab with any problem.

“Winning the Golden Shovel would be a great experience for him to see testing processes in the USA and to get a good appreciation how other laboratories work, particularly lab culture, management of staff and testing (as he knows and carries out some ASTM test methods).”