Fire Safety Engineering – the Graduates’ Perspective

1. Chris Gildersleeve – Arup Fire, Brisbane Andrew Coles - Arup Fire, San Francisco Bevan Jones – Holmes Fire & Safety, Sydney Fire Safety Engineering – the Graduates’ Perspective 20-21 November 2003 Gardens Point Campus QUT Brisbane

2. Fire safety engineering in building design has increased since 1997 Globally fire safety engineering is gaining momentum Consultancies have responded well to the demand Graduate engineers now make up a significant proportion of the industry Fire graduates face different challenges to traditional engineering disciplines Survey of 34 young engineers from Australia, UK, New Zealand, USA, Hong Kong and Singapore Introduction

3. Sample Group Locations

4. What is your greatest motivating influence? “ Working on challenging projects with a good group of people “

5. How challenging do you find your role? “ I believe that fire engineering provides a challenging career when compared to other engineering disciplines, as young fire engineers are exposed to relatively complex issues early in their career “

6. How high is the level of responsibilityon projects given to you? “ As young fire engineers I believe the level of responsibility that we are given is much greater than that of our equals in other engineering professions. “

7. To what extent has your academic study equipped you for the job? I believe the masters course in which I undertook was geared towards the practical side of fire engineering as a professional with most of the design tools and literature those that are used everyday in commercial fire engineering. “ “

8. What type of skills do you most wish you had developed further during your academic training? “ Given that young fire engineers are exposed to the commercial arena at a relatively early stage in their career, development of good commercial skills as well as a strong business and management sense is essential. “

9. How would you describe your daily workload? Very stressful at times, but very rewarding. I love working as a fire protection engineer. “ “

10. How effective is the professional training and development provided to you? “ As much as you might believe you know everything, listen to experienced engineers – they have already made the mistake you are about to make. “

11. To what extent are you provided with a mentor to provide professional guidance? “ There are not enough oldies to mentor in this industry “

12. What priority are you placing on gaining professional qualification? “ Not considered critical at the moment by approval authorities. “

13. To what extent is the fire engineering profession meeting client needs? “ In my experience performance based fire engineering is able to save clients a significant amount of money and also achieve their design vision. “

14. To what extent is the fire engineering profession meeting community needs? “ I think that fire engineering is meeting community needs although they don’t fully appreciate it, the airy offices that they work in, the atriums etc that have been made possible by fire engineering. I think that good architecture can enhance people’s standard of living. “

15. To what extent will the fire engineering profession provide you with afulfilling long term career path? “ Fire Engineering is in its infancy and will only grow in scope and complexity especially as such more disciplines such as Security Engineering develop under its wing. “

16. Its new and exciting Technically challenging Politically challenging Plenty of responsibility Get to solve real problems Sense of achievement Wide range of projects Opportunities to travel Able to influence designs Doing innovative work Useful service to the community Bringing lateral thinking to the design process Conclusions (Positive)

17. Conclusions(negative) • Work / life balance • Insufficient structured training and development • Too few mentors • Clients not involving fire engineering early in projects • Little recognition of fire engineering in the community • Career paths undefined