This year´s final took place on 26 March 2009 with the shortlisted finalists Nathaniel Buckingham, John Ely and Ciaran Willcocks presenting their project reports in front of an audience of nearly 250 people in the Telford Theatre in London and an external audience via Interwise.
John Ely, from BamNuttall, was announced the winner of the prestigious 2009 James Rennie Medal Award after delivering an interesting and inspiring presentation on his role as Construction Manager on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway. John highlighted the challenges he encountered and the difficulties he overcame for this unique piece of transportation of infrastructure which is the longest guided busway in the world. After being announced the winner John said, “Winning the award is a great honour. Although nerve-racking it was an extremely enjoyable evening”
John´s employers BamNuttall were absolutely delighted at the result, “We´re honoured that John was shortlisted to present. To have won is an excellent endorsement of the professional development programme we have in place. It´s exemplified by the fact we have record numbers of graduates progressing.”
Nathaniel Buckingham, from FaberMaunsell, who presented his project report Project Triumph – Key Challenges´, detailed the delivery of the first large scale malt whisky distillery in Scotland for thirty years. and Mott MacDonald´s Ciaran Willcocks presentation covered two projects he was responsible for in his role as Employer´s Representative in Iraq.
The Chair of the judging panel, Alasdair MacLennan said, “While all the candidates adhered to James Rennie ideals we felt that John best demonstrated these ideals in his presentation. The competition was excellent with all three finalists showing exceptional talent.”
The night was a great opportunity for graduate members in the audience to see the work and effort involved in producing and presenting project reports to become a chartered member of ICE. One graduate member commented that “These presentations have shown me what the reviewers are expecting from our project report presentations. The standard is certainly something to aspire to!”
Director of ICE Membership, David Lloyd-Roach, stated that, “All three finalists were outstanding and delivered the most interesting and consistently high-standard presentations of recent times.”
James Rennie passionately believed that high quality civil engineering could only be carried out by civil engineers who had undertaken in-depth and thorough training. He was a stickler for detail, not only in design but also in the programming and planning of the construction of works. He spent much of his 70 year career carefully tutoring his pupils, with the aim of making them great civil engineers; included amongst his pupils is past ICE President Douglas Oakervee.