Maurie Irwin started work with Bundaberg Regional Council as a labourer in the kerb and channelling crew in 1974 and after 50 years has been supported to grow his skills.
Coming from a dairy and cane farming background, Maurie has been employed in both Council’s Civil Works and Major Projects departments.
Starting in the kerb and channelling crew, Maurie expanded his skillset to include a number of plant operator tickets to operate a range of heavy machinery including tractors and slashers, road rollers, end loaders, backhoes, graders and tandem tip trucks, opening up career opportunities.
In his first 12 years with Council, he was labouring and operating machinery on road reconstruction and maintenance, resurfacing roads as well as laying water and sewer mains.
With numerous skills under his belt, Maurie was appointed as a ganger for three years before being promoted to a Construction and Maintenance Supervisor role.
He continued in that role for the next 25 years before taking up his current position as Civil Projects Contract Supervisor in Major Projects.
Now he looks after all types of road surfacing in the Bundaberg Region, scoping up works and ensuring contractors work to specifications.
Maurie said he had noticed many changes throughout his Council career, especially with the design of machinery and improvements in safety.
“We worked with machinery that had no enclosed cabins but in later years, this became a thing of the past when more modern equipment and personal protective equipment was introduced,” he said.
Memorable moments draw on experience
Being on call for 20 years has seen Maurie experience some memorable moments, not the least of which have been responding to and recovering from severe weather conditions.
In February 1992, 500 mm of rain fell overnight in Bargara and surrounding areas, creating localised flooding issues.
“The ground was still saturated from this event a month later in March when we had cyclone Fran come down the coast and the strong winds blew numerous trees over the roads,” Maurie said.
“Council pushed trees off the roads to make them trafficable in the interim and we then spent another six months removing all this timber from the road reserves.”
The camaraderie Maurie has experienced with his co-workers day in and day out has been a major highlight for him during his 50 years and he has enjoyed the variety of work his Council career offered.
His passion for road construction is still evident today and he believed good subgrade preparation and the placing of gravel was the key to achieving a successful outcome.
“I am always telling people that building a road is like painting a weatherboard home where the paint is flaking,” he said.
“If you don’t prepare it properly by sanding back the flaking paint, it won’t last very long.
“It is the same with road construction, if there is any movement in the subgrade, the road will eventually fail.”
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Well done, that is a long time