Eastland Group teams up with IPENZ for careers expo

Eastland Group teams up with IPENZ for careers expo

Eastland Group will team up with the local branch of the Institution of Professional Engineers NZ (IPENZ) for a combined stand at next week’s Gisborne Herald Careers Expo.

The company’s chief executive Matt Todd says the expo is a chance to “help young people and their families understand the options for a career in engineering” and also allows Eastland Group to demonstrate its brand promise of being “stronger together”.

“IPENZ is New Zealand’s professional body for engineers so we’re keen to work alongside them to promote engineering as a career. We’ll have people from our various businesses at the expo over the course of the two days to answer questions, and we’ll also be promoting our tertiary engineering scholarships.”

IPENZ East Coast branch chair, Olivia Davidson, is a graduate environmental engineer at Opus. A recipient of Eastland Group’s $5000 tertiary scholarship in 2011 and 2012, she says the money was invaluable during her time at the University of Canterbury.

“The work experience at Eastland Group as part of the scholarship gave me extremely helpful insight into the engineering profession, it also helped towards the practical experience requirement for my degree. I got to do a number of exciting things during my work experience, I got to ride in a helicopter, visit a hydro dam and geothermal power station, spend a day with a linesmen and see how Eastland Port operates.”

That connection with Eastland Group meant it was an easy choice for Olivia to invite the company to partner with IPENZ at the expo.

“IPENZ is dedicated to building a strong engineering profession that New Zealanders have confidence in and can trust, so we wanted to work together with a local company committed to engineering so that we can to showcase the different jobs that engineers can do.”

She says she’s excited to share her knowledge and experience of engineering as a career.

As part of its expo offering, the combined stand will give visiting high school students the chance to win a week’s work experience with Eastland Group. Mr Todd says the work experience offered would not necessarily have to have an engineering focus.

“We’ll find something to interest whichever student wins. Yes, we do employ a lot of engineers but we also have accountants, administrators, pilots, drivers and other operators.”

The Gisborne Herald Careers Expo is on at the Gisborne Showgrounds Park Event Centre 11 and 12 April 2016, Monday 12.30pm - 7pm and Tuesday 9am - 3pm. Entry is free.

ENDS

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