My first month with Evolution5

I’m Andy Gray, one of the very fresh new faces here at Evolution 5 and I’ll be giving you a walkthrough of my first month!

Firstly a brief narrative on who I am and where I’ve come from. Born in Durban, South Africa, some 24 years ago. My family and I moved to Sussex, England in 2001. My journey to engineering began with the then new, Engineering GCSE where I was awarded the subject prize. Seven years on I graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a Bachelor of Engineering Honours degree in Construction Engineering Management. Three (very) short months later I started a new chapter with the team here at Evolution5.

Initially, things started much as you would expect, reading manuals, setting up laptops, phones etc. But before I knew it (day 2) I was on site with Chris, as he gave me a breakdown of the work he had and continues to be involved with at Worthing Hospital. In short Chris has been involved as the Construction Project Manager for some years at Worthing, building a number of new additions for the Trust. Of the developments, one in particular posed the greatest challenge. Worthing Hospital is situated in a particularly bad flood plain and the new Breast Clinic site is very unfortunately located at the lowest part of the site. Chris explained that a natural soak away attempt had been made initially. This had proved to be inefficient, so a specialist sub-contractor had been brought in to develop a unique pressurized soak away system that allowed flood water to subside from the area.

The following week or so, was spent assisting a mixture of the team; Frank with tasks concerning the now completed John Roan School project. Simon with the erecting of site security fencing at a residential development in Chilworth (where I will be spending a fair amount of my time in the future). And finally assisting Chris and Jamie with a pre tender proposal, heading to the potential site and investigating site office space! All in all, a wide range of experience in an incredibly short space of time.

Next up was MIPIM Property Market, which was, in short, incredible. Pulled in at short notice as a ringer in place of Darren, initially I felt a long way out of my depth. However I got increasingly involved attending as many of the seminars as possible and making a few valuable connections along the way. In short, MIPIM is a really enjoyable way to potentially generate business, and the evenings beers were brilliant as well.

Crashing down from the high of MIPIM, I had to get stuck into some revision for the CSCS Card Health, Safety and Environment Test the following Monday. Happily, I can confirm I passed despite our best efforts in London the previous week.

The final week or so of October has been busy, back on to the residential project in Chilworth, Southampton, preparing and chasing invitation to tender packages for the various trade contractors that will be involved.

In my opinion a cracking first month!