Navy - Civilian Engineer Development Program
One of the real highlights of this Pathway was a six-month external rotation to the shipyards at Garden Island in Sydney, where I worked with Thales Australia during the upgrade project of the Adelaide Class Guided Missile Frigates. I had the opportunity to work in the design office, test and evaluation cell, and production cell, which gave me a huge range of experiences and insights into the realities and practicalities of the commercial ship building world that Navy and Defence Materiel Organisation work closely with.
David believes he developed into ‘a better rounded engineer' thanks to the varied internal departmental rotations he undertook in this Pathway. My rotations ranged from technically specific to much broader and overarching placements, the combination of which I believe have contributed to developing a better rounded engineer.
He said he also enjoyed a number of interesting training and developmental activities throughout the Pathway, notably the N.I.C.E. combat and survivability at sea training at HMAS Creswell, and a number of sea rides with different vessels in the Fleet that totalled several weeks of sea time
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David believes this Pathway has given him a good platform on which to build his career.
I believe the experiences and knowledge I have gained through this Development Pathway have gone a long way to developing me into a professional engineer. It has placed me in an excellent position to further my career in the Department of Defence, but I believe would equally apply if I were to move into the private sector.
David completed this Development Pathway in 2009.