“On the first day, the course convener said, ‘We’re going to teach you a little bit about a lot. There’s going to be a little bit of psychology, a little bit of business, a little bit of law, management, so it’s a very diverse course,’” he says.
“I thought that was amazing.”
Construction project management: a long-term career
Sixteen years later, Vanja is a veteran of the industry. After uni, he spent four years honing his skills at Stephen Edward Construction before making the move to Hansen Yuncken, one of Australia’s most innovative building companies, in 2009.
Now a Senior Project Manager, Vanja has worked on a range of varied and sometimes unexpected projects – from a bespoke training facility at the HMAS Creswell naval academy in Jervis Bay to the iconic Sydney Coliseum Theatre.
At one point, he was even paid to fill up a helicopter maintenance facility with foam.
“The helicopter facility featured a foam fire suppression system – so testing the system meant essentially, a huge warehouse the size of two football fields needed to get filled with foam up to two metres high,” he says.
“You look back and every project has something really interesting about it.”
Re-connecting with UTS
As well as keeping his professional life interesting, Vanja’s role at Hansen Yuncken has also helped him re-establish his connection with UTS.
Thanks to a longstanding relationship between the two institutions, Hansen Yuncken provides a range of professional opportunities for UTS construction project management students.
These include a cadetship program, which is open to all students in the degree, and the Hansen Yuncken Women in Construction Scholarship, which provides $7,500 in cash plus a paid work placement for one successful applicant each year.
The scholarship is part of broader industry efforts to encourage and support women to forge a path in the construction sector, which remains the most male-dominated major industry in Australia.
Supporting tomorrow’s construction project managers
Vanja plays an active role in the scholarship selection process, and he also has regular contact with scholarship recipients and Hansen Yuncken’s cadets.
As a UTS graduate himself, he’s intimately familiar with the skills and capabilities the students bring to their roles – and 16 years later, he’s still impressed by what he sees.
"Most of the cadets we’re getting – and a lot of them are predominantly from UTS – are actually very, very impressive," he says.
In fact, the cadetship and scholarship programs are key to Hansen Yuncken’s recruitment strategy. After completing in-depth placements in the company’s key business units, these UTS students are work ready – and Hansen Yuncken is at the front of the queue when it comes to snapping them up.
“The benefit for us is that every single cadet we’ve had has graduated into a full-time role with Hansen Yuncken,” Vanja says.
“Because they have grown and developed their careers with Hansen Yuncken, we are confident our cadets are some of the industry’s brightest and can hit the ground running on any one of our iconic projects.”
Vanja might be long past the graduate stage of his career, but he knows a thing or two about taking those first steps into a construction career. And, 16 years later, it seems that everything he loved about his studies and the early years of his career still rings true today.
When I started the degree, I fell in love with it and never really looked back.
