A coffee with... Ross Taylor proud chartered engineer and member of ICE
Article posted on: 10 January 2021
Huge congratulations to Ross Taylor, now a proud Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and a chartered civil engineer (CEng)!
Ross joined the team in March last year as a structural engineer working out of our Prestwick office and has been working exceptionally hard over the past months to achieve MICE and CEng. This involved passing the infamous exam, the professional review and receiving formal acceptance from the member committee.
We caught up with Ross to find out more about his career journey to reaching this fantastic achievement. Plus, we hear the highlight of his time so far at Clancy, which iconic structure is his favourite (not just for the cocktails!) and more.
Tell us a little about your career journey to date...
I started my career as an apprentice technician after leaving school in 2007, I worked for The Scott Partnership in Inchinnan whilst also attending college part time to achieve HNC in Civil Engineering.
After completing my college course, I wanted to experience working aboard so I moved to Christchurch, New Zealand for a year to work in structural and demolition engineering at W2 Limited. I gained some great experience working overseas and decided I wanted to develop my training further and go to university.
I moved back to Scotland and re-joined my previous company, whilst also attending Glasgow Caledonian University on day release to achieve a Bsc (Hons) degree in Environmental Civil Engineering. I achieved my degree in 2017 whilst working for Patrick Parsons due to my previous company sadly folding, although I didn’t have much luck as they also folded in 2019 at which time, I moved to Waterman Group as a project engineer.
By this point in my career, I felt I had developed the necessary skills and knowledge over the years to work towards becoming a chartered engineer with ICE. I moved to Clancy Consulting in March 2020 and they helped me achieve this.
Achieving chartership…
Working towards chartership took nine months in total, from submitting and completing the Experiential Learning Assessment in February 2020. To working on my career appraisal and professional review for September 2020. Although, unfortunately due to the pandemic my review was delayed until the November and was undertaken remotely.
In preparation I attended written exercise workshops remotely through ICE which also included mock reviews. I watched professional review webinars and did mock reviews with my sponsors who also reviewed my professional review submission, three of which are my colleagues at Clancy (Neil Orrock, Robert Bissett and Mike Hooper). I studied hard nearly every night during the six weeks leading up to my professional review on all things engineering. Civils, Structures and Geoenvironmental included. I also brushed up on the ICE attributes and codes of conduct, which reflect my own engineering beliefs.
Neil, Robert and Mike were extremely supportive and helpful. I much appreciated them reviewing my work and offering advice, even out of normal working hours. I believe this help was vital in preparing me for review.
What’s been your biggest project highlight whilst working at Clancy?
My project highlight so far has got to be the Helensburgh Leisure Centre project. The project is currently on site and is due for completion later this year. It is great to see the progress being made on the structure which will become an iconic building on the Helensburgh Waterfront. I have enjoyed my role as project lead and being involved in all aspects of the civil and structural design from initial concept to construction stage.
And what about the biggest project challenge you’ve come across?
Although my project highlight, the Helensburgh project has also been my biggest project challenge to date, designing the water retention for the swimming pools. We did not use a water proofing system and instead designed the concrete as water retaining utilising reinforcement at close centres to limit crack widths. Very challenging and it was great to see this implemented during construction on my regular site visits.
Favourite piece of engineering or infrastructure project in the world, and why?
Favourite engineering structure is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore. I was fortunate to visit in 2016 with my girlfriend and have rooftop cocktails (see photo above of us at the top.) It is an iconic structure of the Singapore skyline and really cool looking!
Lastly, just for fun… One thing an engineer can’t live without?
I’ll say a notepad or diary. I find it easier to remember and keep track of things by writing everything down that goes through my head. It’s also so useful as a reference of what you were working on at a specific time or day and what challenges you came across and what you did to solve these.