The journey to and from an award winning hospital

Mid-way through construction, I started my career in Cundall with the role of overseeing the delivery of the £220m Ulster Hospital including VE and redesign. After seven years on the same site, two major buildings were handed over with every type of MEP service one would expect to encounter throughout their whole career (expedited on just this one site). The remaining element of the laundry building will be complete by 2023. Within Northern Ireland, there are very few projects that have been on site for that length of time and it is difficult to express the resilience, determination, and dedication a complex project of that nature required. It is even more difficult to describe the responsibility entrusted to me for its delivery and the confidence those positioned around me had in my technical ability to do so. Looking back, it was a project that I learned a lot on and am glad that I had the opportunity to be part of it. With the occupation of these buildings, the next journey of the Belfast office is one that I am now looking forward to.

Through keen to retain the specialist technical knowledge built up within healthcare, building on the capability of a global practice, from the Belfast office, we have already successfully merged into the market of data centre critical systems, workplace, residential and lifestyle sectors. The team in Belfast is quietly driven, clever, and hardworking. We share the good times and work through the challenges but in doing so, have formed a bond of openness, support, and mutual respect. For me, excluding my technical development, this has been the biggest achievement of working within Cundall – I have grown to realise the influence each of us has on each other and what we have, and can, achieve together.

Construction/engineering is a technical group activity and as such the success is equally beneficial to all members at all levels. Together we all aim for an end product to be as polished as first it was envisaged. Our responsibility is to continue to best influence, guide, and develop the next generation of engineers. Good quality and support of a client is hard to dispute despite any little bumps on the journey. Projects can be won and delivered by any company or any group of engineers but the difference is the sense of ownership, achievement, and empowerment gained from the people that I have the good fortune to work alongside globally. Ultimately I think that the client (and every team member on a project) wins with this approach and attitude.