Engineering Success
by Rick Merten
The Trojan Horse Inside Your Client’s Team: Jonathan Bannister, The…
About this podcast
Every entrepreneur starts their business full of dreams.
Whether it’s innovating a better product or service, creating wealth, building a life to be proud of, or changing the world in some way, engineers are no different.
’Engineering Success’ is a podcast about keeping your dreams alive when things get tough. Because even the strongest technical skills can get overwhelmed by the endless demands of building a business, and one day, you realise that even the best product or service isn’t enough to guarantee success.
‘Engineering Success’ features engineering and industrial leaders chatting candidly about their journey to long-term success: the challenges they encountered, the lessons they learned and the solutions they put in place.
Whether you’re an engineering consultancy, an industrial service provider, or a manufacturer, you’ll hear actionable insights from your peers on how they established strong company cultures, systemised operations, leveraged sales and marketing to generate customers consistently, overcame financial challenges, faced increasing competition, adapted to change and managed growth.
The host, Rick Merten, has been running his own business for over two decades, partnering with hundreds of SMES to help them achieve sustainable success. Rick’s ambition with this podcast is to let entrepreneurial engineers know you are not alone, and to share real-world insights that will help you engineer your success and build a better business.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 32 episodes
- The Trojan Horse Inside Your Client’s Team: Jonathan Bannister, The Design Technology Company · 48 min · Episode 42Most engineers start a business by selling their own technical skills, then slowly build a team around themselves. Jonathan Bannister took the opposite approach from day one. His…
- Why Delegation Is the Key to Growth: Jo Garretty, SALT3 · 32 min · Episode 41Naming a business after your core values means every client, employee and decision gets measured against those words. For Jo Garretty, that was the point. Jo is the managing…
- Standing in the Wreckage: Doron Levy on Fire Engineering, Failure, and Quality · 39 min · Episode 40Most engineers never see their own designs fail. Doron Levy has built a career on standing in the wreckage to work out why. Doron founded Fahrenheit Global, a fire engineering…
- Three Sides of the Same Problem: Gary Finke, CleanTeQ Aromatrix · 37 min · Episode 39Solving odour problems for major infrastructure projects isn't glamorous, but getting it wrong makes life miserable for nearby communities. Gary Finke has spent 35 years making…
- Redefining Civil Superintendency: Edmund Tsang, Tsang Civil Consultants · 47 min · Episode 38Most superintendents administer contracts. Edmund Tsang believes the role should do far more than that. Edmund Tsang is the founder and principal of Tsang Civil Consultants…
- Scaling an Engineering Business Beyond Technical Work: Michael Jones on Systems and Structure · 40 min · Episode 37When Michael Jones launched Jones Structural Engineering, he had no client base and no safety net — just a clear sense of how he wanted to build: on genuine relationships…
- From Migrant Teenager to Business Owner: Jocelyn Do on Building a Civil Engineering Firm · 30 min · Episode 36Starting a business at 26 with no formal business training is daunting. Doing it during a global pandemic, as a female immigrant in a male dominated industry, takes a special…
- Balancing Engineering Rigour With Commercial Reality: Kym Wilkinson, Wilkinson Shaw and Associates · 41 min · Episode 35Most civil engineers solve the technical problem. Few also think about who has to pay for it, deliver it, and make money from it. Kym Wilkinson is the principal engineer at…
- Building Discipline Into Growth: Shannon Neyland on Sustainable Engineering Leadership · 44 min · Episode 34What does it really take to grow an engineering business without losing control of quality, culture, and accountability? Shannon Neyland has built his career at the intersection…
- Pushing Limits Without Compromising Safety: Tim Cartledge, Cartledge Mining and Geotechnics · 40 min · Episode 33What does it take to keep a mine operating safely when the ground is unpredictable, and getting it wrong can shut down the entire operation? Tim Cartledge is the founder of…
- Merging Firms to Multiply Impact: Moussa Youssef, Vanguard Consulting Engineers · 42 min · Episode 32What happens when an engineer gets fed up watching projects fail because no one coordinates properly? Moussa Youssef started BMY Engineering in 2018 after years of witnessing…
- From Solo Founder to 23 Staff: Scaling a Fire Compliance Business: Aleks Culic, Projex Fire · 35 min · Episode 31What does it take to start a business at 20, in the middle of a pandemic, and turn it into one of Australia’s leading fire compliance companies? Aleks Culic is the founder of…
- Next Generation Thinking and the Future of Structural Engineering: Andrew Gall, Argall · 41 min · Episode 30Andrew Gall walked away from a secure engineering career to challenge the industry’s biggest perception problem: that engineers are box-ticking cost centres rather than creative…
- You Can't Design a Solution to a Problem You Don't Understand: Ray Keefe, Successful Endeavours · 43 min · Episode 29Ray Keefe discovered that being a brilliant engineer wasn't enough when his business coach challenged him: "Are you any good? I don't believe your answer - prove it." This brutal…
- Working On, Not In the Business: Adam Hull, Hullcon · 37 min · Episode 28What if the secret to growing an engineering business isn't just about technical excellence, but about completely redefining how designers and contractors work together? Adam…
- Waste is unnecessary, unintelligent, unsustainable, and uncommercial: Josh Robinson, JR Hammer · 37 min · Episode 27Josh Robinson, founder of JR Hammer, is a story that turns everything you thought you knew about recycling upside down.When China slammed its doors shut to the world's…
- The Power of Saying No: Derya Horasan, Scientific Fire Services · 37 min · Episode 26What does it take to move to a new city with zero connections, build a thriving engineering consultancy, and eventually become a company director? In this compelling episode…
- Building a Category-Defining Business and Setting a New Standard in Plant Assessment: Ben Horstmann, Consolidated Plant Service · 38 min · Episode 25What happens when a former diesel mechanic decides to solve one of the construction industry's biggest hidden problems? After an injury ended his original career path, and his…
- From Utility Expert to Engineering Entrepreneur: How One Decision Changed Everything: Jonathan De Carlo, Grid Power Design · 32 min · Episode 24What happens when a successful utility engineer trades job security for entrepreneurial freedom? In this compelling episode of Long Term Thinking for Business Success, Jonathan…
- From Surfer to Director: How a Cheeky Interview Built a 28-Year Engineering Career: Michael Grogan, Birzulis Associates · 40 min · Episode 23In this episode, with Michael Grogan, one of the directors at Birzulis Associates, a consulting engineering firm that's been shaping Australia's structural landscape since 1989…







