Water engineer Rod Naylor uses his engineering talents to think about water at a big-picture level, but he hasn’t lost sight of the importance of getting the small things right.
When Rod Naylor CPEng, Global Water Lead at GHD, took an engineering cadetship while studying at the University of Newcastle, he saw two paths for his future.
Down one road lay BHP and the local steel industry, something for which Naylor had little inclination. He found instead an affinity with the environmentally oriented work he could do at Hunter Water.
Today, nearly 40 years later, Naylor is Global Water Lead at GHD, the capstone for a career that has taken him from the UK to New York to, most recently, joining the board of Colorado-based data platform Divirod and representing water interests at the COP28 climate change summit in Dubai.
“The importance and relevance of water when I started was all about sewage in the street, and safe drinking water and privatisation,” he told create. “That agenda at COP is finally recognising the central role of water – not just in water services, but in environment, in carbon sequestration, in mitigation.
“Water is critical. You can’t do renewables, you can’t do offshore wind, you can’t do hydrogen unless you sort the water [facet] out.”
Add to that the centrality of water management in responding to such disasters as floods and storms, and Naylor’s responsibility for the strategy and direction of GHD’s water activities takes on even greater importance.
“My role is making sure internally we’re engaging with the world, socially and technologically, and we’re taking that on board in terms of our own position, strategies, delivery and work,” he explained. “It really evokes the importance of water in everything that we do.”
For Naylor, focusing on this global scale while not forgetting about the local challenges involved with the water industry is crucial to how he approaches his work.
“The key is to actually have a global perspective but translate that to the local implication,” he said.
“Every circumstance, every jurisdiction has unique and discrete local water issues, and they cannot be divorced from social and environmental [governance].”
Tips for career success
Naylor became Chartered through Engineers Australia’s Leadership and Management College, and he appreciates the credibility it gives him in developing and overseeing a company’s strategic outlook.
“It’s not a licence to be described as the expert; it doesn’t create a right. It creates an opportunity,” he explained.
“It says ‘here’s a person who has enough credibility to be included’, but you still have to stand on your own contribution.”
Naylor has the following tips for up-and-coming engineers looking to get ahead:
- Learn to speak the language of non-engineering professionals.
- Going beyond technical expertise requires understanding multiple perspectives.
- Learn how to collaborate as an engineer to ensure you can have a big impact.