Building up to be an engineer - The Canberra Times

THE MOWER AND THE AUTHOR: Megan Healey, above left, who has multiple sclerosis and is on a Great MS Mowdown ending in Sydney next week, with Senator Kate Lundy. Photo courtesy: SparkleRyda Photography Photo: SparkleRyda Photography

The brains behind Canberra's built environment were celebrated with an orgiastic display of engineering enthusiasm on the summit of Mount Stromlo on Thursday.

Dozens of the territory's finest minds, and one Nobel prize laureate who had the misfortune of not being born an engineer, congregated at the Solar Observatory Building on the 101st anniversary of the announcement that Walter Burley Griffin had won the Canberra design competition for the launch of ''A Century of Canberra Engineering''.

While Dilbert could not make it, he was there in spirit with GHD director Robert Knott guardedly admitting to reading the cult comic strip that is beloved of long-suffering engineers everywhere.

''That bloke who writes it [Dilbert] is often on the money,'' he told Gang-gang. ''He obviously has some good feeds.''

GHD, for those who came in late, is working on the ASIO building, the Cotter Dam upgrade and has been linked to many of Canberra's largest engineering endeavours. The company also chipped in towards the cost of Canberra Engineering, which was written by almost local Keith Baker.

''I came here from Melbourne on a temporary six-month transfer about 30 years ago,'' he said. ''I love the place.''

Keith Baker with his book Canberra Engineering. Photo: Supplied

A heritage specialist, Baker said writing the book had been a lot of fun. ''Canberra's engineering history is an integral part of Canberra's history,'' he said.

Canberra Nobel prize co-laureate Brian Schmidt was effusive in his praise of the engineering class, saying they were among the most underappreciated workers in the world and took other people's ideas and made them work.

While the professor pulled up short of saying that if he was not an award-winning scientist he would have wanted to be an engineer, the politicians present suffered from no such inhibitions.

Rolfe Hartley, the MC, told Senator Kate Lundy she was ''almost one of us'' by virtue of her father being an engineer.

Chris Bourke, representing the Chief Minister, claimed to be a member of the ancient fellowship on the grounds he too had built bridges and (rubber) dams … as a dentist.

''Engineers make it happen; they have made Canberra the most livable of all cities,'' he said.

The book, by the way, is a corker and is a remarkable history of Canberra's urban environment and infrastructure.

Because Canberra is essentially a postwar city, modern construction materials and design techniques have played a far greater role in its development than many older communities.

Baker has shown a real knack for being able to draw out the elegant simplicity of some of the solutions that have been found to a wide range of design challenges, such as the Telstra Tower, over the past 100 years.

Copies cost $60 and can be obtained through the Canberra Division of Engineers Australia.

■ Parliament House denizens who may have pinched themselves after seeing a young mother circumnavigate the building aboard a ride-on lawn mower on Thursday morning can believe their eyes.

Megan Healey, who has multiple sclerosis, is almost at the end of her 16-day, 1040-kilometre Great MS Mowdown, which ends in Sydney next week.

Ms Healey, who is hoping to raise $50,000, is in Canberra for five days. A fund-raiser is to be held at the Novotel on Saturday night.

MS affects 23,000 Australians and there is no known cause or cure. Three out of four people affected are women and consequences include extreme fatigue and chronic pain.