Defence resourcing done right
Project delivery in the age of exponential infrastructure
Samuel King, Senior Project Manager
Between his work on the redevelopment of HMAS Cerberus and overseeing a small team, Senior Project Manager Sam King's days are definitely busy. We spoke to Sam about his role on the Navy project, his love of marine projects, and his favourite spot in Melbourne for a stroll.
Q Tell us about your role at RPS
At the moment I’m a Senior Project Manager working on the HMAS Cerberus redevelopment, which will see an upgrade of the base’s infrastructure and training facilities. Generally, my job involves all the client-side stuff, and my team and I are responsible for making sure everything’s adhering to cost and time restraints, and overseeing the managing contractor.
Q What's it like working on major Defence projects? How do you spend your days?
I split my time fairly evenly between being on-site and being in the office. I’ll usually be down on the base three days a week or so, and at least one member of the team will be on-site on any given day. I try to spend as much time as I can down with the base staff and our contractors to make sure I’ve always got a thorough understanding of how everything’s tracking and progressing. A normal day involves a lot of cost management and variation assessment, as well as a fair bit of stakeholder engagement work to make sure we’re not causing too much distraction on the base while we’re working on it.
Q If you could work on any project what would it be?
I love marine work and have done a lot of marine engineering in the past, so anything marine-related is something I enjoy doing.
Quick Q&A
1. Footy team?
Gotta be the Sydney Swans!
2. Favourite spot in Melbourne?
I like walking around Southbank, I think it’s a really nice area and love going for a stroll there.
3. Coffee pick?
Just the one up the road from me!
Q Are there any opportunities you think are going to be significant for Melbourne going forward?
I think renewables are such a huge opportunity right now, it’d be great for Victoria to be at the forefront of developing the infrastructure necessary to capitalise on that.
Q What makes you proud to call yourself a Victorian?
I love the lifestyle! Half the reason we moved down here was because of the vibe and the lifestyle options, everyone’s so open and friendly and accommodating, I love it.
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