When Dr Mark Skanes FIEAust CPEng, Engineers Australia’s 2023 Professional Engineer of the Year, reached Year 11, he decided he would not finish high school.
Instead, he enlisted as a corporal in the Canadian Air Force.
“I started out as a paraprofessional — as a technical person on aircraft, turning wrenches,” he told create.
That’s what set him on the path to becoming an engineer.
“I was interested not just in turning the wrenches, but in why am I turning these wrenches — why is this all working?”
Skanes had been studying at night school, and seeing the engineering officers at work guided him down a more challenging and more fulfilling path.
“I went to the Royal Military College in Canada, and I graduated from there in engineering,” he said. “[After] a few more years in the Canadian Air Force, I switched over to the Royal Australian Air Force, and that’s what brought me to Adelaide.
“I’ve always had this thirst for knowledge and wanting to learn — either formally or informally, it doesn’t matter.”
More than money
Today, after 40 years in the profession, that passion and curiosity continue to motivate Skanes, as well as a deep desire to pass on his knowledge to younger generations.
“People are what matter,” he said. “The work I do at the moment is probably 60 to 70 per cent pro bono. I’m not driven by money at this stage anymore.
“If it is a paid position, I’m not going to work for nothing, by all means — and I know what the market rates are — but if there’s an area in which someone needs some help and they’re struggling at the junior level — a startup company, as one example — I’m the first to step in.”
This has seen Skanes involved in formal mentorship programs, such as the Industry Mentoring Network in STEM, where he has helped master’s and PhD students adapt to working in industry. One engineer he worked with was a woman who had left the workforce for five years when she became a mother.
“But meanwhile in the past five years, she’s done a PhD in geotechnical engineering,” he explained.
“Sometimes they just need that extra set of eyes to say, ‘Hey, listen, you’ve done lots; you’ve got lots to offer. Let’s just put this in perspective.’”
And when it comes to the next generation of engineers, Skanes believes fostering diversity is where he can make a difference.
“I want to leverage [the Professional Engineer of the Year award] to try and inspire … some different policies, some better outlooks, on how to get diversity in engineering, particularly with women,” he said.
“One of the things that I’ve been passionate about is women in engineering and in STEM.”
Eschewing the Groundhog Day life
A notable feature of Skanes’s career is the breadth of industries in which he has been involved. As well as his 20 years of military service, he also has a PhD in Business Administration, and he lectures in that field part-time at the University of Newcastle.
But he has also led projects and consulted in as diverse a range of sectors as utilities, mining, manufacturing, rail, construction, sport and public service.
“At one level, it’s the same,” he said. “It’s about STEM, it’s about technology, and how you … apply it to other areas.”
Skanes has never viewed his work as being confined to defence or rail or any of the other industries to which he’s contributed; he can think innovatively about any sector.
“I get itchy feet if I feel like I’m not making a difference,” he said.
“I don’t need to change the world; I just take on a little bit, a few pieces, and move with it.”
At this stage of his career, Skanes is able to choose what he wants to work on, and he picks out his consultancy and contracts with care, looking for ideas that excite him. He wants to avoid living a life that feels like “Groundhog Day every morning”.
“I need something that really drives not just innovation in STEM but also is supported by the business side of it,” he said.
Electrifying work
This passion for innovation and seeing the difference he is able to make in the world comes through clearly on one project that Skanes considers to be a personal career highlight.
“I got the opportunity to go and become the design engineer manager for the Adelaide rail network and to electrify it,” he said.
“I had never designed overhead wiring before.”
It was his professional instincts that guided him.
“It’s engineering — make it happen. Get the right people underneath you,” he said. “Every time I go into Adelaide, I pass by the electrification for Seaford in Central Station, and I realise that was all my work. It’s pretty awesome.”
By contrast, Skanes describes receiving the Professional Engineer of the Year accolade as “humbling”.
“It’s an accolade which is given as an endorsement from my peers,” he said.
“At the latter part of my career where I’m at now, [I feel a] bit reflective in some ways too. You think, ‘maybe I did do something right along the way’.”
Nominations for the 2024 Excellence Awards open in April — learn more here.