2022 Award Winners

Doug Crawford

Principal at The Marron Consultancy and a long-serving member of the Standards Australia community, Doug has a long tenure developing and supporting standards, having held the chair position on BD-036, Scaffolding, since 1987, a role from which he has only recently retired.

Over the last few decades, Doug has been instrumental in the development and maintenance of the scaffolding standards portfolio. He has been a trusted chair of several committees; including BD-043, Formwork; BD-092, Temporary Edge Protection — Construction Practices; BD-036, Scaffolding; and SF-013, Platforms, Gangways, Stairways and Ladders.

An exceptional chair and highly respected by all members of the Scaffolding committee, Doug has been the driving force in developing scaffolding standards and ensuring they are kept up to date.

Doug’s work was previously recognised with The Standards Award in 1999 for housing construction standards.

Outside of his work with the Scaffolding committee, Doug is well known and respected in the industry and has been called upon on many occasions to assist counsel and provide evidence at judicial inquiries.

Jane Pires

One of Jane’s favourite quotes by Reba McEntire is “To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.” This is certainly true of her contribution to standards and Standards Australia.

Jane’s 30 years’ experience in customer service and complaint management, and her senior executive experience in dispute resolution, mediation, conciliation, leadership, strategy, and business operations have been instrumental in helping her set the tone for standards.

Jane has had an active role in the revision of AS 10002 (now published 25 March 2022) and her contributions have been significant. She is known by colleagues as positive, approachable, knowledgeable, quick to adapt to changes and an exemplary Chair. Having shown exceptional leadership in her role as chair of QR- 015, Complaints Handling. Jane has navigated changes from AS ISO 10002-2006, Customer satisfaction – Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations, through to AS 10002:2022, Guidelines for complaint management in organizations.

Jane has continually engaged internationally with the objective of having Australia’s leading focus – on best practice complaints management – adopted globally. She has attended several international meetings to progress the revision and development of international standard and related 9000 series standards.

The 9000 series standards have been adopted by the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP) as the standard to follow when dealing with their customers. SOCAP, an organisation which Jane chaired for several years, comprises members from many of Australia’s leading companies. The standard is also widely used by many other Australian and New Zealand organisations and public sector agencies.

Dr Stephen Collocott

Dr Stephen Collocott is an eminent scientist specialising in condensed matter physics, focussing on magnetic materials and their applications, in particular rare earth permanent magnets. His expert knowledge in this area of work has been utilised to develop a suite of international standards for the global rare earth industry.

In 2016, Dr Collocott was appointed Independent Chair of the Australian Mirror Committee MN-011, Rare Earth, to ISO/TC 298, Rare Earth. In addition, he is an Australian representative at ISO/TC 298 plenary meetings and serves as an expert on a number of working groups. In March 2021, he became Co-Convener of an ISO Strategic Advisory Group on Critical Minerals (SAGCM), with the mandate to ‘undertake an analysis of existing and potential standardisation work in the area of critical minerals from the point of initial extraction (mining and production of raw materials), and processing steps through to precursor materials; and make recommendations to the TMB in this regard’. SAGCM members are international experts nominated by ISO-TMB members, non-TMB ISO members (by expression of interest) and IEC/SMB, supported by a Consultative Group representing a broad range of ISO technical committees.

Throughout his 33 year career at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research, Dr Collocott held a variety of management, research, and consultancy roles and has in-depth expertise in the automotive, appliance, mining and energy sectors. He has had, and continues to have, research collaborations with groups in the UK, Germany and China and has worked with a variety of industrial partners, both in Australia and overseas.

Dr Collocott also represented Australia at the Trilateral EU-Japan-US Critical Materials Conferences in Washington DC in 2011, Tokyo 2012, and Brussels 2013, giving presentations on aspects of the rare earth industry in Australia.

Balesh Baleshan

Balesh is currently employed by Meinhardt, one of the largest independent engineering consultancies in the world. He has extensive experience in the field of façade and structural engineering, having previously worked for G. James Glass and Aluminium.

Balesh’s journey with Standards Australia began when he became a member of Standards Australia’s NEXTgen program. NEXTgen is a professional development program that works with emerging industry and technical experts to give them exposure to standardisation processes. As an extremely qualified individual both through education and experience, Balesh has contributed immensely to the standardisation of glazing and fixing glass as well as loading on structures.

Following the NEXTgen program, Balesh became a committee member for BD-006, General Design Requirements and Loading on Structures, and BD-007, Glazing and Fixing of Glass. Balesh is actively involved in the world of standards; currently working on the latest developments of AS/NZS 1170.2:2021, Structural design actions, Part 2: Wind actions, and AS 1288:2021, Glass in buildings – Selection and installation, by BD-006 and BD-007, respectively.

As a part of these committees, Balesh has played a significant role in the process of updating glazing standards and eliminating blemishes. This update has provided more comprehensive data to determine the minimum requirements for the safe design of glass and has had a very positive impact on the façade industry, with a more accurate design approach to public safety. It is one of his outstanding contributions to the glazing industry lately.

Rob Thomas

Rob Thomas is the Managing Director of FireMate, an Australian software-as-a-service solutions provider to the fire protection industry. Rob has been part of the fire protection industry since his teenage years. He started ‘on the tools’ as an electrician, which enabled him to understand the challenges that on-site teams face every day. While founding FireMate, Rob quickly recognised the need to make Australian Standards more accessible across the fire industry.

With this in mind, he established a solution in partnership with Standards Australia that breaks through previous technical and commercial barriers.

The partnership is a global-first implementation that sees the Australian Standards being innovatively delivered through a new, more accessible and cost-effective way for the fire industry. The platform also offers new ways of developing standards.

Not only was Rob’s solution innovative, it was also a world-first. Adrian O’Connell, CEO of Standards Australia said that the offering was “A first of its kind, innovative solution that brings Australian Standards into the hands of end-users through a modern digital solution.” He went on to say that it was “...an important step in [Standards Australia’s] commitment to better access to Australian Standards.

Likewise, the Assistant Minister for Industry Development, Senator the Hon Jonathon Duniam, commented that the solution “demonstrates the drive and innovation of Australians. Our passion to make life easier and safer and more effective benefits everyone. I congratulate Standards Australia and FireMate Software on this clever and intuitive service offering.”

ME-063, Earthmoving Equipment

ME-063, Earthmoving Equipment, initiated a strategic portfolio refresh 18 months ago. The committee implemented a three-pronged strategy of direct text adopting international standards and modify-adopting international standards where appropriate for Australia, all while continuing to retain, develop and sustain a number of unique Australian Standards. 

ME-063 set a Standards Australia record in 2022 for the greatest number of standards published in a 12-month period (120), with more in the pipeline for 2022 and 2023. This effectively resets the Australian standards landscape for earthmoving equipment.

The committee’s efforts have transformed a portfolio of 60 aged standards with no prior active projects, into a portfolio of 120 standards with 6 active projects. The successes are being reflected by an expanding ME-063 membership from across the critical Australian construction and mining sectors, representing further potential to carry the momentum.

ME-063’s efforts have recently been recognised by a number of Australian regulators for the health and safety benefits this represents for the Australian construction and mining industry.

Two of the key published committee projects, AS 5327:2022 and AS 3450:2021, have also been recognised by ISO/TC 127, Earth-moving machinery, for the benchmarksetting work that they represent. These two published Australian Standards are the first globally published international/national standards covering two key safety focus areas on earthmoving equipment (powered access systems, and in-service brake testing), and are expected to lead to the development of aligned ISO/TC 127 standards.

With a lot of the committee’s efforts handled virtually over the last two years, ME-063 has demonstrated a successful adaptation to a post COVID era of standards collaboration.

Standards Australia recognises and thanks the committee members and their nominating organisations for enabling ME-063’s success.