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Young IPWEA profile: Megan Bonehill

By pwpro posted 14-02-2014 10:01

  

Young IPWEA South Australia Chair Megan Bonehill says the most rewarding part of her career is working on projects with a strong focus on helping the community.

By Alexandra Middleton

Setting her sights on engineering early in high school, Megan Bonehill was looking for a profession that offered diversity and a chance to give back to the community. Five years after completing a double degree in Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of South Australia, Bonehill says she has found just that. “I love my job, I love the diversity of the role, that it’s not purely office based and that there are site visits that enable me to get out in the community.” 
Megan Bonehill Young IPWEA


Bonehill is the Assistant Project Manager of Infrastructure at the District Council of Mount Barker (DCMB) in South Australia, where she has worked for three and a half years. In this role, Bonehill oversees all recreational, drainage and road projects within the council’s capital works program, from project scope development through to the consulting and construction phase. 

Prior to this, Bonehill worked for two years as a graduate engineer at consultancy firm, Aurecon. During her second year with the company, Bonehill relocated to their Mildura offices in rural Victoria to work with the local council. Bonehill says there’s a number of similarities between her previous and current role, and credits her time in Mildura for preparing her to manage a diverse range of projects. “It was a brilliant opportunity to develop my skills,” she says. 

While she has enjoyed the variety her career has offered to date, Bonehill says the greatest reward comes from working on projects that have a strong community focus. Also close to her heart is the issue of sustainability and the need to minimise the social and environmental impact of the projects she oversees. 

One project that particularly stands out for Bonehill was DCMB’s Anembo Park Lighting Project, which involved the installation of just under $1 million worth of lighting at a local recreational facility. The previously unlit facility required public safety roadway lighting as well as tennis, softball and soccer ground lighting. “Being able to participate in projects like this was one of the key reasons I got into the industry,” she says. “While some may take it for granted, seeing members of the community benefitting from access to the facility in the evenings was something I found extremely rewarding.”

As Divisional Chair for Young IPWEA South Australia, Bonehill’s sense of community extends to her own professional cohort. “When there was an initial call for people to get involved, on top of my love of the profession, I saw it as a means to get some representation for young professionals with families.” As a mother to twin two-year-olds who works part time, this is a demographic close to Bonehill’s heart. “Among the Board we have tried to distinguish different focus areas and mine is Gender and Cultural and Language Equality,” she says. “It's something I feel strongly about, and privileged to be involved in.”

Bonehill says she is extremely grateful to have an employer who is flexible and appreciates the challenges of raising a young family, but adds she is strongly aware that others are not so lucky. 

Bonehill says a gap year in Japan teaching English is a reminder of just how lucky Australian engineers are to have organisations such as IPWEA supporting them. This appreciation stems from the experiences one of her Japanese students, a female engineer, shared with her. “Besides the obvious cultural and language differences there is a considerable difference in the Japanese work culture, particularly in terms of gender inequality,” says Bonehill. “Some of the experiences she shared with me are very different to what I have experienced in my own career. It’s something that makes me feel very lucky to work in Australia.”

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