A life-changing opportunity at a Brisbane café

The café overlooked the beach, and dolphins could be seen swimming in the water. This was where Shauna Moore worked as a waitress. A trip to Australia with friends, which had extended beyond its original plan after she “ran out of money,” had led her to look for all sorts of jobs. Her first was serving drinks at this Melbourne Bay café for five months.

Shauna, as she shows in this interview, is chatty and outgoing, so it didn’t take long before she struck up conversations with the café’s regulars. Some retired engineers asked her: what was a geotechnical engineer doing there?

“He was like, oh, someone has given us your CV. Would you be interested in working with us? To this day, I still don’t know who it was but am extremely thankful to that person!”

After this stage, she moved on to another job, still far removed from her engineering credentials, helping on a farm. However, a life-changing event was about to take place: “I ended up doing farm work outside Brisbane. I’m near Toowoomba and got a phone call from Dene from Geotech. He was like, oh, someone has given us your CV. Would you be interested in working with us? To this day, I still don’t know who it was but am extremely thankful to that person!”

The first farm

Shauna explains that the Australian farm where she received the surprising call wasn’t the first farm in her life. If we go back to her childhood, we will see hills and pastures. This was her family’s farm in Ireland, where she grew up as the eldest of five siblings, surrounded by nature. “I’ve always been interested in the outdoors. I was a scout in my time. I always veered towards geography. I love the environment, the ocean, anything around hiking.”

“I always veered towards geography. I love the environment, the ocean, anything around hiking.”

She remembers playing football and going fishing during a childhood filled with an insatiable curiosity about the world: “There was always something happening. I was always out, even in the rain—which, in Ireland, is pretty frequently.”

In this constant connection to the outdoors, some traits that would shape her future also began to take form. “We always would have gone down to our grandad’s house in the summer and messed around with the boat.” She also recalls another moment when her identity started to take shape: “It was probably some sort of organic engineering, if you could call it that. We’d done a house extension, and Mom said I was just obsessed when they were doing that, just watching how they built it. I always would have been interested in Lego and building stuff as a younger child.”

She also began developing her musical talents, playing the concertina—a “little Irish accordion”—the French horn, and some piano. She enjoyed it so much that she started considering a professional future in music. “I sort of thought I’d go down the music route and do music therapy, but my math’s teacher was like, ‘I really think you love engineering. Have you thought about it?’” And so, she decided to pursue an engineering degree in Dublin.

One of seven

Shauna studied her undergraduate degree at Trinity College, where, as happened with other engineers who have featured in Our People, such as Génesis Loyola, she realized she was in a clear minority: “I think there were seven women overall in the whole of engineering, including civil, mechanical, and electrical. I don’t think I knew just how male-dominated it would be.”

“Diversity in construction is something I’m very passionate about, and I’ve been fortunate to take a lead role in a lot of what we do to improve it.”

 

This realization, like the moment she watched the extension of her childhood family home, also shaped her future path: “Diversity in construction is something I’m very passionate about, and I’ve probably been fortunate enough to get involved in a lot of things that we do and process and take a sort of lead role in some of that.”

An unplanned interview

As mentioned earlier, shortly after arriving in Australia, Shauna ran out of resources and began moving from one job to another. Shauna laughs as she recalls the hiring process that first took her to Geotech.

“I was doing my farm work, so I was picking cauliflower and broccoli, and I was covered in mud, and they texted me for a job interview.”

 

“I was doing my farm work, so I was picking cauliflower and broccoli, and I was covered in mud, and he texted and wanted to move the interview. I literally was covered in dirt, and sweaty and gross, and I ran home quickly, put on a shirt, tied up my hair, and then went to the launderette. Gatlin was a small town, so I ran there. Unfortunately, their computer was not working so I had to run into the main street with an internet café. They were all being used so I explained my situation and thankfully a nice man let me use the computer in exchange for a coffee and a pie! I was literally in welly boots and shorts, and then only the top half of me was professional, but it worked.” After a second interview in Melbourne, she got the job.

Her work at Geotech took her across various roles, from initially designing foundations and piles to engaging more directly with on-site work, which she found thrilling. She then progressed to working as a project engineer and eventually as a geotechnical civil engineer on wind farms and various dam projects. Over five years, she moved between locations such as Darwin and Victoria before settling in Melbourne. “The coolest project was probably in Darwin. It was a specialized project that needed a bit of design and construction, and it was on a barge, so we got to work on a barge, and there were crocodiles swimming around, and turtles. That was fun.”

And how did her transition to her current company come about? She did not have to change companies—Geotech became part of ACCIONA, where she moved into her current role.

A balance between office and field

Shauna explains what she does and what her day-to-day work looks like today. “Definitely, I can’t sit in an office all day. I move around too much, I’m too fidgety, but I think I like the balance. I really like designing it and planning it and then seeing it through,” she says, referring to the projects she works on. And she adds, “It’s just a really good feeling when you see something physically being built from start to finish and know that you sort of helped with that.”

“If you’re always in the office, you lose sight of what’s happening and just being on-site and getting to know everyone.”

Perhaps part of this inclination toward the outdoors stems from her rural childhood, but also from a matter of perspective: “I personally think it’s really important to have the balance because if you’re always in the office, you lose sight of what’s happening and just being on-site and getting to know everyone.”

The social impact of infrastructures

What exactly does Shauna’s work involve, which takes her out into the field to oversee infrastructure projects? “I’ve been working on the Southern Program Alliance [a joint venture led by ACCIONA], which is an alliance doing the infrastructure projects and level crossing removals.” These are the same projects that Robbie Lynch, another of our interviewees, works on to incorporate cultural expressions of Aboriginal communities.

In this sense, Shauna reflects on the social impact of her work: “As a younger engineer, you’re like, ‘Oh, I want to do something that changes the world,’ but when you’re building a project in your day-to-day, you lose sight of the positive impact sometimes. For example, we did Patterson River Bridge. Basically, we built a new road over a river, and then we did a shared user path which brought you down to the riverbank, to a stepped garden. There was a lot of work with the Aboriginal heritage and the culture there, and we built a big yarning circle, which became a key feature for the community.”

“We had a lot of engagement with the local Aboriginal elder and we were heavily involved in impacting the design and how we would do it and to match the colors. Just learning about all the culture and significance of that area was really cool and being able to influence the design because we were involved from an early stage.”

 

How exactly did this process unfold? “We had a lot of engagement with the local Aboriginal elder and we were heavily involved in impacting the design and how we would do it and to match the colors. Just learning about all the culture and significance of that area was really cool and being able to influence the design because we were involved from an early stage.”

In addition to the cultural aspect, these projects integrate sustainability from the outset. In the case of the Patterson River Bridge, they devised a system to prevent construction-generated waste from reaching the water. She adds: “At Bonbeach, we also were quite innovative by the type of concrete we used—a thing called Fibercrete, which requires less steel and improves construction safety.”

“We use solar panels now for all our light towers, our crib sheds are used with solar. […] In every project, we think about what our carbon footprint is going to be and then set ourselves goals to reduce it.”

In any case, Shauna’s reflections on sustainability go beyond specific projects: “We use solar panels now for all our light towers, our crib sheds are used with solar. There’s loads of stuff. It’s just normal for us now. In every project, we think about what our carbon footprint is going to be and then set ourselves goals to reduce it. For example, we encourage everyone not to drive as much to their job. In one of our latest projects, we got bikes so people could just cycle from site to site or encouraged them to use public transport rather than driving around.”

Championing gender equality

Returning to the issue of gender during her career, how has the role of women evolved in a sector like construction? “I notice a massive change since when I first started in Australia. Particularly in the last probably three years, I think gender diversity has really come into its own, and everyone’s not just talking about it, but there’s a lot of focus on it now.”

Gradually, Shauna has transitioned from observer to active participant and, ultimately, leader in this field. “I think as a younger engineer, I probably didn’t have the confidence to call someone out or would have been a little bit scared. After probably two to three years, I think I had that confidence, and it’s more about educating people. Everyone has stereotypes, and I think you just need to prove yourself or just have the conversation and have it out and then move on.”

“The things that we say are barriers to females entering the industry are also things that are affecting males.”

Regardless, Shauna advocates for a more holistic approach to representation issues: “I think that there’s no point in looking at gender diversity as a female problem. One of the things we tried to really enforce is that there are a lot of problems in the construction industry, particularly in infrastructure, with high-risk jobs that you’re doing, safety factors, critical timelines, and so on. And those are issues for everyone. If you look at the mental health, suicide rate in construction, if you look at divorce rate, it’s quite high. The things that we say are barriers to females entering the industry are also things that are affecting males. The targets are important, but we need to try and make it a better industry for everyone, and then organically, more females will enter the industry.”

She also mentions the networking event held recently in Madrid with other senior engineers from ACCIONA worldwide: “We got to see the different cultures and how they operate, and things that are business as usual in Australia are massive issues in other parts of the world, and vice versa.”

Lastly, in addition to initiatives such as visiting schools to give talks to future engineers and inviting them to see ACCIONA’s work, Shauna has also written a mentorship book for them. All these efforts culminated in the Crystal Vision Award she received from the National Association of Women in Construction in 2021.

ACCIONA’s Australian expansion

In recent features, we’ve spoken with several men and women who came to Australia as foreigners and were able to develop their professional careers within the framework of ACCIONA’s growth in the country. Cases such as Sushana Karki, Blythe Hartley, or Shauna herself. On this, she comments: “ACCIONA has definitely made a name for itself in Australia now. They have been here for more than 20 years. The Energía business entered the Australian market in 2002, ACCIONA undertook its first Infra job in 2007, then we had the Geotech acquisition in 2017.  They’re up there with the big players now, which obviously takes a little bit of time.”

And what about the future? “I think there’s so much opportunity in the infrastructure space in Australia. At the minute, they’re mostly in Victoria and WA. I think in the next years; they’ll be everywhere and be one of the biggest across the country.” As part of that momentum, Shauna will continue working to ensure ACCIONA grows and continues to make a positive impact in the industry. “If we’re not talking about gender diversity in five years, it would be lovely. My goal would be that you don’t even need to talk about it.” With the determination and vision of individuals like her, there’s no doubt that this goal is well within reach.