We are thrilled to announce that this year, our undergraduate engineer, Taryn Bitzas, took home the Outstanding Student, Apprentice or Trainee award!
The beginning of the night was filled with anticipation – hundreds of nominees were buzzing with excitement to see who would take home the awards for the night (and also to be amongst some fantastic people in the industry.)
Our Symal nominees stood together in support of one another, and cheered louder than any other in the room when it was announced that Taryn was one of the winners for the night.
We’ve always known that Taryn was a star, but she didn’t fail to blow away the judges with her involvement in an array of educational and social experiences, from Tasmania to LA, to Engineers Without Borders.
Amongst the other incredible nominees for this award, Taryn stood out on the basis of her ability to take the lead when her project contracted COVID. She quickly rose to the challenge and excelled in ensuring all critical activities were completed and project milestones were met, despite being the only engineer on site. This required a certain skill set and the ability to demonstrate initiative, and a drive to succeed. These are the qualities that Taryn possesses.
Taryn’s journey to becoming an engineer wasn’t conventional, but we love it when our people find In June 2020, Taryn commenced her work with Symal (Civilex at the time) in a temporary role alongside the finance team during the financial year-end. Coming from a marketing background, she was offered a position to assist with the group rebrand project from Civilex to Symal.
Taryn’s interest in engineering was sparked through this process. When rebranding the position description for a project engineer, the roles, responsibilities, and key skills resonated with Taryn, which prompted her to apply for the course; she could see herself performing in this role long term. She was brought on as an undergraduate engineer for Wamarra (Symal’s Indigenous division) in October 2021, where she performed as a project administrator for six months before transitioning to the engineering team in March 2022.
A big congratulations to Taryn! We can’t wait to see how far you go in your career.