Dick Pollitt

Greetings all! I am thrilled by the initiative to get back together after 53 years! I remember Fort Street as the best two years of my school life. I’m not sure what we learned, but I do feel it was a very special class with a very special teacher. I still experience waves of nostalgia looking at the school when crossing the bridge!

I have been living in Mosman for the past 22 years, just walking distance from Mosman Primary, which I left to go to Fort Street all those years ago. I am married with a daughter Zoe, son John, and two grandsons, Zac and Felix.

From Fort Street I went to North Sydney Boys High with several of the boys from our class. I didn’t really distinguish myself academically or at sport, but particularly enjoyed the science subjects, and playing rugby on Wednesday afternoons. Thoughts of going on to become a physicist, (blame Harry Messel!), were fortunately brought back to earth by an ordinary mark in Leaving Maths. With no real sense of a calling, I ended up on the final enrolment day at Sydney Uni, selecting Civil Engineering almost by chance. Luckily, that choice worked out very well for me, leading to an interesting career.

After working as a Structural Design Engineer for 3 years in Sydney, I left to see the world. I hitchhiked around Europe for 6 months, then worked for the UK Atomic Energy Authority in Berkshire, and for various consulting engineers in London. However my travels were cut short when I met Carole in London in 1965. We were married in 1967and returned to Sydney. We are still together 39 years on.

Back in Australia, I worked for EPT, an Italian company, designing TV and transmission line towers. However my interest in design was waning, so I studied part time at UNSW for an MBA. This opened new doors. I worked for PA Consultants as a Project Management Consultant, spending 3 amazing years on the completion of the Opera House.

I left PA to join a new project management firm, McLachlan Consultants in 1973. There I worked on a wide variety of projects, including office buildings, hotels, museums and the Moomba to Sydney gas pipeline. In 1977 I opened an office for the company in Auckland, and enjoyed seven years there with my young family. In NZ I worked on buildings, rail projects, and also several dairy factories. One of these made 10 tons of cheddar a day! Another converted milk sugar into alcohol. Clever these Kiwis! On returning to Sydney in ’84, I became involved in several overseas projects including the Asian Development Bank Headquarters in Manila; water and waste water projects in Thailand and Indonesia, container terminals in Mumbai and Colombo. In Sydney I enjoyed managing the bid process for the Olympic Stadium. In 1995, the UK firm, Bovis acquired McLachlan Consultants. Then in 1998 Lend Lease purchased Bovis, so I went through two takeovers before retiring as a Director of Bovis Lend Lease in 2002.

However I still get a “buzz” working with project teams on big projects, so have welcomed the opportunity to work part time for the last three years, most recently with RailCorp on its PPP project to acquire 600 new train cars for the Sydney network. I also occasionally lecture on Project Management to the NSW Enterprise workshop and mentor its students

Away from work, I am really enjoying being a grandfather! My four-year-old grandson loves “stories from your mouth” as he puts it. “Kevin and the Ghost Train” is the current favourite. Maybe there is a book waiting to be written! I am also enjoying travelling to out of the way places. Carole and I spent a month in Sri Lanka helping a friend there with an aid project prior to the tsunami. Last year I fulfilled a life long dream by visiting Antarctica, including some climbing, which was more nerve racking than I had expected, and this September we will be trekking in Ladakh. At home we are experiencing “empty nest syndrome”, so will probably move out of our rambling old house sometime soon

I also enjoy sailing, walking, swimming, but these healthy pursuits are offset by an enjoyment of Asian food and the search for cheap but drinkable pinot noir. Apart from that I like going to the movies and concerts, but could easily become a ‘Grumpy Old Man” trying to keep up with the technology that is now part of our lives… I’m looking forward to the “Old Forts” Reunion in March!

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