“I enjoy bringing my perspective and experience to the multi-disciplined Beca team so together we can provide a more robust outcome for our clients’ projects.”
Gerald’s interests are in property rights and property information, including locating boundaries and subdivisions – information widely used throughout Beca. For example, any project can include having to establish the location of buildings or services in relation to property boundaries, the acquisition of properties, the disposal or subdivision of land and the creation of easements and other rights over land.
After graduating from the University of Otago in 1988 with a Bachelors’ degree in Surveying, Gerald gained over 20 year’s experience in Land Surveying in New Zealand. He worked for the NZ Department of Lands and Survey for 10 years before moving to Auckland to work for a number of companies from local authorities to small surveying consultancies. In all these roles, Gerald developed a strong association with the local authorities and government approving agencies.
Gerald joined Beca in 2007 and has been involved with a variety of projects. One of the most significant was the Ministry of Justice’s Maori Freehold Land Registration where 15,000 customary Maori Land parcels, registered with the Maori Land Court, were reconciled against the Government’s land titles registration system, Landonline.
Gerald also assisted with legalising the land acquired for use in Auckland’s Northern Busway project and the State Highway 20 Mt Roskill motorway extension. This work defined the extents of the motorway (for example, the line between land controlled by the Local Council and that controlled by NZ Transport Agency), and paved the way for changing the legal status of the land to motorway.
“I firmly believe that a company’s strength is its people, and this is particularly true at Beca”, he says. Gerald believes that Beca’s employee-owned structure not only attracts good employees, but encourages them to give their best.