Matt Roskam

Matt Roskam is a young engineer working in Aurecon’s Mining & Industrial team based up in the company’s Brisbane office

Matt explains why engineering was such a compelling choice:

“I loved maths, physics and problem solving. You might say I was a bit of a nerd” laughed Matt. “I had a keen interest in graphics. Pulling something apart to see how it works, and then redrawing it or detailing the mechanics of how something works is really enjoyable. It is a good feeling to hold something in your hand and then translate that item into a two-dimensional representation.

When the time came to make a university choice, finance was not on the cards.

Matt said: “Even though I was good at maths, finance was never a real option for me. I’m not great with money and that sort of subject matter really doesn’t hold my interest. Law was also not appealing as the idea of wearing a suit and tie every day was just too restrictive. “

And medicine?

“Medicine could have been an option for me as I like the idea of helping people but I think the negatives, death, disease, injury, would have been really difficult to cope with and I don’t think I could stand the idea of losing a patient.” 

So you headed off to university?

“I studied engineering at the University of Queensland and majored in mechanical and space engineering as I quite fancied being a rocket scientist. My thesis was a design project (I loved the idea of designing and building and then testing something) and I built a payload for a new rocket designed to go at Mach 7 (approximately 2.2kilometers per second). As the rocket had been built the year before, the department was looking for a lightweight section to insert experiments, parachutes, locating beacons and so on, that’s where I came in.

“I really enjoyed studying so last year I decided to go back to do my masters degree. I will be finishing that (hopefully) this year. This time around, my thesis is related to my work at Aurecon. I will be developing a model of how a port works, taking into account all machines, maintenance downtime, weather downtime and other hidden problems, which will give port operators a chance to understand how much throughput they should be able to achieve through the port, and also to work out where bottle necks occur. It is all about making ports more effective and efficient.”

Why did you chose to work at Aurecon?

“When I was at University, I had a really interesting chat with a representative at a careers fair and it sounded like an interesting place to work so I applied for a job as a vacation student and I have been here ever since.” 

And why did you chose to work in the Mining & Industrial sector?

“What I like about this sector is the sheer magnitude of some of the projects and machinery that I am working with. I loved seeing these ridiculously large machines moving ridiculously large amounts of material. I’ve traded in machines that move faster than the speed of sound for machines which move more like a snail, but the sheer size of the machines more than makes up for it. I also like working on site. Ports are by nature, located on the water and this means that travelling to site involves water, beautiful views and good chance to swim/surf.”

Any last words?

“I think that new graduates should try to work in a large company so they can take advantage of internal opportunities to move within the company and within different sectors. This exposes you to a wide range of jobs, and experts, and areas of knowledge, and means that, as an engineer, I get great exposure to a wide range of work in lots of places (nationally and internationally). One week I might be working on a rubbish dump in Dalby, the next working on a port in Vietnam or Indonesia or two kilometres out on pier up in Gladstone. It makes work enjoyable and interesting and really, that’s what keeps me inspired.”