An engineering sister-act

An engineering sister-act

26 May 2010

Is engineering still a man’s world? Not if Brisbane’s Rankine sisters have anything to do with it. Kirralee (30), Briony (30) and Kelda (29) are all pursuing geotechnical engineering careers at Golder Associates in Toowong, Brisbane.

Working alongside two of your siblings would not be everybody’s cup of tea, but the Rankine sisters love it and also spend much of their spare time together.

“We’re all best friends. We love to go rockclimbing, swimming or jogging beside the Brisbane River together,” said Kirralee.

The sisters will admit to a healthy touch of sibling rivalry. But any rivalry that does exist is serving them extremely well – they each have a PhD and are highly respected by their clients and peers.

“We couldn’t be more pleased to have three of the Rankine sisters as part of our team. They are great people and are developing into terrific consultants,” said Manager for Golder in Brisbane, Ian Lipton.

As part of the growing wave of women choosing to pursue a career in engineering, the Rankine sisters are enjoying a work environment where gender is rarely an issue.

“Female and male engineers face the same sorts of challenges. If you are clear about what you will and won’t tolerate on a job site, then contractors respect you for it. The higher numbers of female engineers coming through universities means that to see a woman on site isn’t as odd as it used to be,” said Briony.

Kirralee adds that “it is nice that in this day and age I can put on a set of florescent orange coveralls and climb around a landslide during the day and put on a dress and heels and go out for dinner at night and it doesn’t feel strange”.

The engineering gene is not confined to women in the Rankine family, the ‘Golder sisters’ share their passion for the profession with their father and two of their brothers – bringing the Rankine family engineering tally to grand total of six.

For Kirralee, engineering was the right choice “because the application is only limited by your imagination and I was bound to find my niche with that breadth of opportunity”.

Golder in Brisbane has been putting the talent of the Rankine sisters to good use. Briony and Kelda have had much of their time consumed by Brisbane’s landmark Clem7 tunnel, where Briony was involved in the preliminary design phase of the project and Kelda in the latter stages of design and construction supervision. The 4.8 km tunnel is Australia’s longest road tunnel and passes under the Brisbane River.

“Being part of the Clem7 project is definitely a career highlight. We were able to see our design work materialise into something that will make life a lot easier for Brisbane motorists,” said Kelda.

Golder Associates is taking every opportunity to encourage young women and men to pursue a career in engineering. The Brisbane branch of the global employee-owned firm has recently sponsored the ‘SKIRTS’ annual dinner for 2010. ‘SKIRTS’ is a University of Queensland group which aims to build a social network for female engineers.

In partnership with the University of Queensland, Golder in Brisbane has also created the Golder Geomechanics Centre. The Centre specialises in a range of subjects in ground engineering and environmental science.