Meet Our Commitee
Bill Newns
CHAIR
Bill Newns has over 25 years international experience from the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the United States and since 2011 has been engaged in the delivery of the Auckland City Rail Link as a design manager. Prior to this Bill was also the lead tunnel engineer assisting the NZTA procure the Waterview Connection, and was the principal technical advisor to SA Water for the tunnelling works for the Adelaide Desalination.
Recently he has also been principal tunnel technical advisor to Kiwirail and the NCTIR Alliance for the Kaikoura earthquake recovery works.
Victor Romero
TREASURER & DEPUTY CHAIR
Victor has over 26 years of underground design and construction experience, principally in the rail transit, highway, water supply, wastewater, and utility sectors.
Mr. Romero holds a B.S. in Geological Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and a M.S. in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
Victor also has project management experience on several large tunnelling projects that have required production of contract documents (drawings, specifications, and geotechnical baseline reports) by traditional construct-only and design+construct project delivery methods.
He has coordinated work on multidisciplinary teams, served as a construction manager, and provided construction claims consulting.
Stephen Grace
ACADEMIC LIAISON
Stephen has been working in the water industry in a range of roles (construction, planning, design and operations) for 30 years.
Stephen is currently the Watercare Design Manager for the Central Interceptor wastewater tunnel in Auckland.
Matt Mules
NZ PIPEJACKING GUIDE
Matt is an MBA-educated engineer with over 12 years’ experience in the construction industry. He has worked in management roles on a number of complex, high profile, global projects, before moving into business management roles. Matt is now the General Manager of Abergeldie Harker.
Matt has experience in most areas of underground construction and has played a key role in a number of technically challenging, urban tunnelling projects in NZ and the UK including working on the Northern Gateway, Crossrail and Thames Tideway projects.
More recently Matt has been involved in a number of pipejacking projects across New Zealand. He has filled the role of Site Senior Executive on a number of these projects including the City Rail Link C2 works and continues to work closely with WorkSafe in the pursuit of safer working practices in tunnelling environments.
Priscilla Page
SHORT COURSE & TRAINING COORDINATOR
Priscilla has spent the last 18 years involved in the mining industry both in New Zealand and overseas.
During this time she has worked in both underground and surface operations and in both metalliferous and coal mining environments.
Priscilla holds a Masters in Mining Engineering (Mine Geomechanics) and a Geology Honours degree. Priscilla has held positions in the Extractives sector as a Geologist and Geotechnical Engineer.
Prior to taking up the position of Specialist Health and Safety Inspector in the HHU Extractives team, Priscilla was the Group Geotechnical Engineer for Vale Australia.
Priscilla is the lead Inspector within the HHU Extractives team for the civil tunnelling sector.
Ross Roberts
SHORT COURSE & TRAINING COORDINATOR
Stephen has been working in the water industry in a range of roles (construction, planning, design and operations) for 30 years.
Stephen is currently the Watercare Design Manager for the Central Interceptor wastewater tunnel in Auckland.
Jenny Chu
MEMBERSHIP CHAIR
Jenny joined the NZTS committee in mid 2017 as the ‘young member’ representative.
Jenny also sits in on the ITA Young Members Group and is currently working on the construction of the City Rail Link in Auckland.
Paul Cooper
EVENING TECHNICAL TALKS COORDINATOR
Paul has 18 years’ experience specialising in trenchless and tunnelling estimation as well as construction services. His experience covers SEM tunnels, drill and blast, road-header, TBM drives, and micro-tunnelling, including HDD and auger boring.
Currently Estimating Manager for McConnell Dowell Paul has developed winning bids on a number of major trenchless or tunnelling projects over the past seven years, including the longest road tunnels in New Zealand on the Waterview Connection project for the NZ Transport Agency.
Paul has been instrumental in bringing the Direct Pipe technology to New Zealand where it is being used for the first time on the Army Bay Replacement Outfall for Watercare Services Ltd.
Paul has also led bids for power stations (diesel and hydro), wharves, bridges, and dams including the 2016 CCNZ award-winning Waitaki Dam Erosion Remediation project for Meridian Energy. But, his passion is for TBM driven tunnels. This is Pauls second year on the ATS board.
Rory Bishop
PAST CHAIRMAN 2014 - 2016
Rory has more than 20 years’ experience in the infrastructure industry. He has specialist expertise in tunnelling and has lead major road, rails/metro and station tunnel projects in New Zealand, the Pacific and the United Kingdom.
In New Zealand these have included a major sewer upgrade for Watercare Services, Project Hobson and the Christchurch Ocean Outfall project. Rory was instrumental in the Well-Connected Alliance’s successful bid for the Waterview Connection.
He has a BEng and is a; UK Chartered Engineer (CEng), Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, Member of the Society for the Environment, UK Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) and Member of the Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining.
