Katie Corbett reports:
On Wednesday 19th June, two engineers visited the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton to talk to us about their experience of working as coastal engineers for Van Oord.
Van Oord is an international marine contracting and engineering firm, undertaking turnkey projects and specialising in offshore wind energy, dredging and offshore oil and gas. Whilst the company operates in 46 countries, Van Oord is a family-run business and considers itself to be locally dedicated to its projects.
Lizzie Chellew and Peter Stout, both ECE alumni, are both extremely passionate about their careers with Van Oord. Their roles as project engineer and superintendents involve working as engineers onsite, bringing them to the forefront of projects and enabling them to be involved with both engineering and project management. Their positions at Van Oord have taken them to work on projects around the world. Peter is currently based on the Lincshore project on the east coast of the UK; it is the largest beach nourishment scheme in the country and is being undertaken to minimise the risk of flooding. One of Van Oord’s projects which I have found particularly interesting to read about is their land reclamation work in the Maldives as this is a region I am currently studying as part of my dissertation project.
Van Oord offer a unique, one year Traineeship programme for graduates which involves learning both in the classroom and out in the field, providing an strong foundation for a career in coastal engineering – applications open in August! It was really interesting to hear from Lizzie and Peter about a typical day in the life of a coastal engineer. My overriding impression is that Van Oord is a creative and pioneering organisation, and I think it’s fair to say that they’ve made us all very excited to commence our careers!