Welcome Q&A | Joe Martin, General Manager – NSW

We are pleased to welcome Joe Martin to BSE as General Manager – NSW.

Joe is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and Member of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, with more than 20 years of experience across the UK and Australia. He has led multidisciplinary teams on major projects across the cultural, education, health, and commercial sectors, and has developed broad experience across project delivery, business operations, and team development.

He also brings a strong commitment to the future of the building services industry, including his ongoing work connecting Australian universities with London South Bank University to support building services education in Australia.

In New South Wales, Joe’s project experience includes Naala Badu (Sydney Modern), UTS Central – Tower 2, the Blacktown Hospital Redevelopment, and the John Hunter Hospital Health Precinct.

To welcome Joe to #TeamBSE, we sat down with him for a Q&A covering what attracted him to BSE, his career so far, and life outside of work.

Now, let’s get into the Q&A with Joe.

1. What attracted you to BSE?

The people and the importance senior management places on getting the right people within the company. We’re a people-centric industry, and it was evident from the first coffee catch-up the importance BSE places on its people and team.

Subsequent catch-ups have shown me how forward-looking BSE is as a company, which excites me to be part of that positive momentum.

2. What are you most looking forward to about joining BSE?

I’m looking forward to getting to know the team, learning from the group, and bringing my experience into a new group. I’m excited to work with the team and create an environment for everyone to develop and grow whilst doing some great work.

I’m mostly looking forward to the unknown, in a way. The industry is fast-moving, and I’m excited to be part of a team navigating that is forward-looking, creative, and agile.

3. What can clients expect when working with you?

I like to enjoy the work we do alongside delivering great projects and try to create a respectful working environment in everything I do.

Clients can expect someone who will be available and present when they need it, and always available at the end of the phone.

I bring a wide range of experiences from across my career, with a broad perspective to things, whilst maintaining that in-built engineering ability to focus in on the detail when required.

4. Can you tell us more about your career?

My career began in the UK with an apprentice-style training as a Mechanical Engineer, followed by a Bachelor’s degree in Building Services at London South Bank University and a Master’s degree in Energy and Sustainable Development. This has given me a varied engineering education across all building services, with a subsequent focus through study on sustainability.

My career has been split almost in two, with the first 10 years in the UK and the second 12 in Australia, intersected by two breaks. Firstly, I went to Jamaica for a six-month Engineering Volunteering position in 2014, followed by a sabbatical to bike tour around Asia in 2020, which I impeccably timed just as the world was shutting down due to COVID.

I am actively involved with universities in the UK and Australia, providing guest lectures at London South Bank University when visiting, and working on a partnership between Australian and UK universities to develop building services courses in Australia, which are currently not available.

In Sydney, I’ve had the privilege to lead teams and work on some iconic Sydney projects, with the Naala Badu (Sydney Modern) project being particularly special to me.

5. What are some challenging projects you’ve worked on?

Problem solving is what an Engineer ultimately does best, and I have an enjoyment for challenging projects, of which there have been many through my career.

One that comes immediately to mind is what I know as Gallery 8, or just ‘the tank’, but is now known as the Nelson Packer Tank at the Naala Badu building. A set of historic, decommissioned dual-fuel tanks, each approximately 2,000 square metres and 8 metres tall, with the new gallery to sit atop them and incorporate them somehow. Initial inspections were through a top-access safety hatch, kitted out in gumboots and head torches to sift through the spider roots and flood water crisscrossing the floor and columns.

Concrete walls saturated with oil and unknown structural integrity, we worked to develop a brief and collaborate with the wider design team and client to develop a space that is a truly unique, functional, code-compliant, comfortable, and adaptive space, but more than anything, an experience.

6. How did you overcome these challenges?

As a team, we overcame the challenges by returning to the question of what the space experience and use should be. We then worked through limitations, safety aspects, and opportunities. It took a collaborative and focused attention from the entire design team to maintain and inform an engaged client to develop a space that there really is no precedent for.

It took some creative thinking, bespoke designs, and lots of optioneering that all took a lot of time, but the outcome is one that, as a team, we can be proud of.

7. What’s Joe like outside of work?

Outside of work, I keep myself busy playing sports that I’m too old to really be doing, so will very likely have some form of sporting injury at any time. Football, trail running, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu keep me busy when I’m not limping along.

I’m also a long-suffering football (soccer) fan of my hometown club, Reading FC.

I’m actively part of community groups and regularly volunteer with a homeless laundry service called Orange Sky.