Pietro Jarre, an international speaker, delivered the Annual Golder Associates Professional Lecture at the Belfast campus.

His lecture, Our Engineering Profession in a Turbulent World: Why Technical Excellence will not be enough in 2015, was well received by an audience made up of senior personnel from across the Northern Ireland landscape including directors, civil servants and professional leaders.

Event organiser, Alan Strong, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering from the School of the Built Environment, said: “This stimulating lecture tackled cultural awareness, stakeholder ownership and client service on the one side and linked these to the challenges of resilience and sustainability on the other side, as well as the thorny matter of professional inter-dependence and independence.

“In emphasising the Golder mantra of ‘Engineering Earth’s Development While Preserving Its Integrity’, Pietro importantly argued for the need to secure technical quality, that is, ‘what we do’ and high quality service, ‘how we do it’, in tandem.

Pietro is a Principal with Golder Associates, a global 8500-person employee owned consultancy. Previously, he led Golder Associates in Europe for over 10 years and since 2008 has been Vice President of Golder’s Business Development Activities with responsibility for growing its global network, developing its knowledge management systems and nurturing its key client program.

The Annual Golder Professional Lecture was a partnership between the University’s School of the Built Environment and Mark Gilligan from Golder UK & Ireland, who is a double graduate from Ulster.

Caption: Guests at the Annual Golder Professional Lecture 2012 at the University of Ulster were: Alan Strong Senior Lecturer & Event Organiser; Professor Alastair Adair, PVC; Kevin McShane, Institution of Civil Engineers; Pietro Jarre, Golder VP Europe & Guest Speaker; Mark Gilligan, MD, Golder Associates UK & Ireland; Professor Ian Montgomery, Dean, Faculty of Art Design & the Built Environment.