Passionate Engineers: We Need You
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Passionate Engineers: We Need You Key Note Address delivered by Er. Lim Bok Ngam, Deputy Chief Executive, Infrastructure & Development, Land Transport Authority on Professional Engineers Board Day of Dedication, 9 November 2011 Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State, Ministry of National Development andMinistry of Trade and Industry, Er. Lau Joo Ming, President, Professional Engineers Board, Distinguished guests, fellow Engineers, ladies and gentlemen It is a great honour for me to be here today to deliver the key note address, especially to the new group of professional engineers. Preparing for this talk gave me the opportunity to mull over what Singapore might have been had there been no professional engineers. I came to the conclusion that without the dedication of the many engineers who came before us, Singapore would not be the modern bustling place it is today, on par with many modern cities across the world. And so, on this Day of Dedication, when we celebrate our profession and reaffirm our commitment to maintain high standards to better serve the public and stakeholders, we can give tribute to those who came before us and their contributions to Singapore. We can also derive some lessons from their experiences as we move into challenging times ahead. Now that you have been presented with your Professional Engineer Registration Certificates, you will face a plethora of questions and decisions in your daily professional life. Before you start feeling overwhelmed, remember that many professional engineers have been here before you – and survived! Now it is your turn to go through the turbulent initial years of your practice and progress from here. Lessons from the past In Singapore we can trace our beginnings to the appointment of George D. Coleman as the Superintendent of Public Works and Convicts in 1833. You would know of Mr Coleman from the familiar Coleman Street, Coleman Lane and Coleman Bridge. In those days, society honoured engineers by naming streets, bridges and buildings after them. Regrettably, this practice has ceased! Consider other famous names in Singapore, without realising they were engineers: J.T. Thomson, Colonel R. MacPherson, Major J.F.A. McNair and Colonel Sir H.E. McCallum. Many of our predecessors were military people. Passionate Engineers: We Need You 1 Much of Singapore’s infrastructure development can be credited to the former Public Works Department, created in 1872, 39 years after George D. Coleman was appointed as the Superintendent of Public Works. By the end of the 1930’s, the Singapore Branch of the PWD had only 16 men, including civil and electrical engineers of various grades and one mechanical engineer. So few engineers achieved so much! By the 1930’s Singapore already boasted many bridges, such as Coleman Bridge, Elgin Bridge, Cavenagh Bridge, Ord Bridge and Anderson Bridge. At the same time, the city’s roads were already well developed and major trunk roads such as Bukit Timah Road were completed. By the 1930’s, the skyline of Singapore was distinctively Singaporean with buildings such as St Andrew’s Cathedral, the Court House (now Empress Place Building), the Government House (now Istana Negara), the Raffles Museum & Library (now National Museum), Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Kandang Kerbau Maternity Hospital and the Municipal Building (now City Hall). First Lesson In fact, our predecessors were very efficient and resourceful to complete such grandiose projects with so few engineers. This is probably the first lesson that we should learn as modern day engineers, where there is a passion for engineering nothing is really too big or too difficult for us. We can certainly achieve anything if we believe in ourselves and do the best we can. Second Lesson In 1956, the Merdeka Bridge was completed. “Merdeka” means “Freedom and Independence” in Malay. By May 1959, the People’s Action Party was swept into power. Thus, 1959 was a very significant year not only for Singapore, but for us as engineers, because in that same year, we saw the appointment of the first non- Caucasian as Director of Public Works. He was Dr Ng Wah Hing. We draw our second lesson from these events and that is, we should not shy away from learning from foreigners and from overseas experience, but we must strive to achieve our own “Merdeka” by developing our own expertise. Be as good if not better than our counterparts overseas. You must take all the opportunities you can to further your professional development and be the best you can. For us civil engineers, Merdeka Bridge marked the beginning of modern day engineering in Singapore. It was the first time we used precast concrete beams and pre-stressing for bridge construction. In fact, the 400m structure was the longest pre-stressed bridge in Southeast Asia at that time. This was a ground breaking step for the engineers to take. To paraphrase Neil Armstrong, it was “one small step for an engineer, one giant leap for Singapore." Passionate Engineers: We Need You 2 Third Lesson Herein lies our third lesson: let’s not be afraid to innovate in our day-to-day practice. Only through innovating do we achieve breakthroughs. And only through breakthroughs do we achieve excellence. Modern day Singapore really took off with full internal self-government. At the same time, a new era began for engineers. In the following 30 years we built extensively. Considering only transport infrastructure, we saw the first multi- storey carpark at Market Street in 1964, our first flyover across Clemenceau Avenue in 1970, our National Stadium in 1973 and the Area Licensing Scheme in 1975. Changi Airport, Benjamin Sheares Bridge, East Coast Parkway and Pan- Island Expressway followed in 1981, the Bukit Timah Expressway in 1985, the Ayer Rajah Expressway in 1988, Changi Airport Terminal 2 in 1990 and Central Expressway in 1991. The 1987 opening of the initial section of the MRT—between Yio Chu Kang Station and Toa Payoh Station—marked another major milestone for Singapore and for us engineers. Today, Singapore is proud of its first-world land transport infrastructure. And it will only get better with the government spending $60 billion over the next ten years on our land transport system. This work presents a golden opportunity for you to sharpen your skills and broaden your expertise. I am proud of the expertise we have gained in our own right. Metro authorities from overseas regularly knock on our door asking us to provide them with consultancy services to improve their transport system. We have given our services to clients in places as diverse as Dublin, Shanghai, Bangkok and Marmaray in Turkey. Fourth Lesson Thus, the fourth lesson is to seize every opportunity you have to sharpen your skills. Sometimes, young engineers want rapid gratification, rather than putting in the extra effort to deepen knowledge and excel. Avoid that pitfall and hone your skills! Fifth Lesson So far I have highlighted our accomplishments. But we Engineers have seen darker days too. There are episodes in our history we should not forget, lest we repeat the same mistakes. Hotel New World and Nicoll Highway immediately come to mind. On Saturday, 15 March 1986 at 11.25 am, the 6-level Lian Yak building collapsed suddenly, leaving little time for anyone to make their escape. 33 people were killed. The subsequent rescue effort saved 17 lives out of the 50 people trapped in the rubble. Passionate Engineers: We Need You 3 A Commission of Inquiry investigated the cause of the collapse. It found that under-design, shoddy workmanship and cost-cutting by contractors were the main causes for the collapse. The stark conclusion was that an engineer doing his job alone was not enough. Another engineer should check that he did his work properly so the public could be sure that building standards were met. And this procedure was established. Then, on Tuesday 20 April 2004 at about 3.30 pm, disaster struck when part of a temporary retaining wall of the Circle Line MRT site at Nicoll Highway collapsed. The collapse caused a cave-in, brought the surrounding area and highway into it, forming a 30 meter deep crater. The tragedy left four men dead and set the Circle Line project back by two years. The Committee of Inquiry in its final May 2005 report laid bare a string of lamentable errors. These included design, construction, monitoring and supervision, regulatory weakness and the lack of defensive systems and emergency planning. The Committee concluded that “the death of four persons was the direct result of the collapse” and that “[the] Nicoll Highway collapse could have been prevented. We as Engineers were again found to be wanting. As a result, new strict regulatory measures were put in place to achieve safety at all costs. The impact of these measures on our profession has been deep. The fifth and final lesson I would draw from these two tragedies is that we— as Professional Engineers—must not be complacent. Society entrusts us with its safety and we must not fail them. Summary If I may sum up, the history of our profession in Singapore provides excellent lessons: First, when we have a passion for engineering, no project is too big or too difficult. Second, we should not be shy about learning from others. Third, innovate in your day-to-day practice. Fourth, seize every opportunity to sharpen skills. And, finally, we must not be complacent about the trust the public invests in us. Passionate Engineers: We Need You 4 Conclusion All this may sound a little bit bewildering. With all this, how on earth can I find success in this profession, you may ask. Well, there is a simple formula and engineers like formulae.