Sidelined, but still in the game

An adventurous daredevil, an engineer, meet Reuben Joseph, Senior Project Engineer. First joining the team as a site administrator after graduating from engineering, Reuben’s worked his way up the ranks in his eight years at Monadelphous and has most recently been a part of an award-winning project innovation. 

“There was a general lack of graduate engineering opportunities in the market, so I just wanted to get my foot in the door and took the site administrator role.  

“Not long after I joined Monadelphous in October 2014, I was offered a graduate opportunity here in March 2015 while I was executing my first project at Cape Preston,” he said. 

“Some of the highlights from early on in my career include securing that graduate role and executing my first project. 

“Among the more recent highlights I can count the successful commercial close-out negotiations with the customer and subcontractors on Mining Area C (MAC) Surplus Water Project (SWP3), and being part of the team nominated for the Department of Mines, Industry, Regulation and Safety (DMIRS), Safety Innovation Awards and National Safety Awards of Excellence for the MAC SWP3 Ergonomic Poly-Welding Pipe Stands, as well as the EC Innovation Awards.” 

“I’d also say that throughout my time at Monadelphous, it’s the people I’ve met and friendships I’ve been able to make which rank highly too. 

“I really enjoy getting to work with great people. The jobs are always interesting and challenging, however the team whether they are on site or in the office, has always enhanced the experience.”  

Along with the people he gets to work with, Reuben enjoys the challenges of projects and working with younger engineers to help them grow in their career. 

“In my day to day I get to work with a variety of people and due to the dynamic nature of our industry, each day is different and there’s always something new that crops up. 

“I genuinely enjoy working with the younger engineers and watching them grow and develop over the lifetime of a project, and ultimately take a lot of pride in it.” 

The enormity of the work Reuben is involved in isn’t lost on him and he appreciates the size of the projects and sites he gets to work on. 

“I enjoy seeing the construction and operation of plants when I’m on site, it never ceases to amaze me how large some of the equipment is and the intelligence of the minds behind it all.” 

Away from work and predominantly during the pre-COVID era, Reuben would go travelling at every chance he could and has visited the United States of America, Europe, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand and Indonesia. 

“One of my favourite places I’ve experienced was Cappadocia, Turkey where I went hot-air ballooning over what I can only describe as fairy-tale-esque landscapes,” he said. 

“Queenstown, New Zealand would also be one of my most memorable holidays because it was where I took the plunge and sky-dived 12,000 feet over Lake Wakatipu!” 

“The next place I’d like to visit is Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya because of its part in the Great Migration, the dense and diverse population of wildlife, and it’s managed by the local communities – it would be an incredible place to see.” 

When Reuben isn’t spending time in the sky or jumping out of planes, he is very passionate about his sport whether that be playing or watching it. 

“I’m currently sidelined by an ACL injury which happened within the first five minutes of the first game of the footy season, so I’ve been watching a lot of sport this year, I’m looking forward to getting back out there soon. 

“I’ve been pretty unlucky with injuries and have had 41 stitches in my head from a variety of separate sport related injuries over the years, even as early on as 28 years ago when I was 3 years old and attempted to ride a bike without training wheels, crashing head on into a shade umbrella’s angle iron support.”