Dr Tom Connor is a retired Structural Engineer, former Vice President of Technology in KBR's Infrastructure and Minerals Unit, Former National President of the Institution of Engineers Australia (now Engineers Australia), Recipient of Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), 1999 Queensland Engineer of the Year, Recipient of the Peter Nicol Russell Medal (EA's highest award for technical contributions to the engineering profession), former Chair Of the Queensland Sustainable Energy Advisory Council and former Chair of the Australian Building Energy Council, to name just a few of the things Dr Tom has been recognised for over the course of his illustrious career. 

AD was fortunate to have worked under Dr Tom during a time earlier on in his career at Kinhill (now KBR), and we were able to have a wide-ranging conversation with Dr Tom regarding his many professional undertakings, from his credentials and work overseas, contributing as Director to several appointments to ventures for International Aid addressing Disaster and Flood Recovery. He was responsible for the development of some of the earliest approaches to 2D flood modelling of river and floodplains in Australia, developing one of the first 2D flooding modelling softwares which was used as one of the only of its kind during the early advent of the field of computational finite element analysis for this modelling approach. 

Dr Tom was also at the forefront of some of the industry’s earliest approaches to advancing renewable energy, and energy and emission minimisation, and was responsible for development at the strategic level on climate change adaptation and sustainability when they were barely new buzzwords in the industry. Dr Tom was undertaking research and publishing papers as far back as 1988 urging sensible and reasoned considerations to an adaptive approach towards climate change so as to minimise the impact of climate change influences, and plan and design for implementation of projects to directly address this.

Dr Tom has also been involved in major initiatives for energy efficiencies and clean energy sources in Australia. He has been Chair of the Australian Building Energy Council which had its mission to reduce the energy requirements in Australian buildings. He was invited by the Queensland Government in 2000 to chair its Environmental Protection Agency’s Sustainable Energy Innovation Fund (QSEIF).

Dr Tom has achieved some unbelievable successes throughout his career which both Hawkes & AD felt extremely fortunate to be able to speak with him about and share with you. We hope you enjoy listening, Dr Tom is an inspirational yet extremely humble person, and one whose success is unparalleled.