Announcing new Engineering Leadership Staff

Our new Engineering Practice Manager is Martin Pratchett MEngNZ. A structural engineer, Martin joins us from Certa Engineering in Lower Hutt, where he worked on residential and light commercial projects. 

Martin leads our provision of practice advice to engineers and the public. He’ll be working closely with our technical groups, MBIE, and other stakeholders to help support you in your practice. 

We’ve also welcomed a new Principal Adviser. Eleanor Laban joins Engineering New Zealand from MBIE, where she worked as an engagement specialist, including on major policy work that needed targeted stakeholder engagement and consultation.

Eleanor will be project managing engineering guidelines, from development through to release and implementation. She’ll be working closely with technical groups, MBIE, and other stakeholders to progress the guidelines. 

Supplementing the team, we’re lucky to have Dave Brunsdon DistFEngNZ and Mike Stannard FEngNZ working for us on a casual basis. They help out with technical work, provide expert advice and assist with the many queries we receive. Dave is a highly experienced earthquake engineer with experience across the building, infrastructure, emergency management and research sectors. He mostly works on leadership and co-ordination of complex multi-agency projects across these sectors. 

As well as being a Life Member of both the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering and the Structural Engineering Society of New Zealand, in 2012 Dave received the Minister of Civil Defence’s Silver Award in recognition of his important contribution to civil defence and emergency management. 

Mike was formerly Chief Engineer for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and has a wide range of engineering experience, both in New Zealand and internationally. He’s also a Life Member of New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, Structural Engineering Society New Zealand (SESOC) and the New Zealand Geotechnical Society.