YOUNG GUN YUM’S HOME RUNS
Laura Yum’s background is in civil and environmental engineering, which translates to construction and landfill projects across both design and project management. Her achievements in that sphere are laudable, however it’s her active dedication to upskilling, value-adding, and going the extra mile which mark her as a leader to watch. Laura’s achievements, work ethic, and initiatives during her tenure at Golder Associates resulted in Laura being named the winner of the 2019 Young Professional of the Year Award.
While studying on exchange in southern Germany, Laura’s interest in waste and resource recovery was piqued by the famed seven-bin household system – a world apart from the three-bin Sydney system she was accustomed to. Laura went on to explore the world of WARR by joining Golder Associates in 2014 as a civil and environmental engineer.
A highlight of her work at Golder is the WestConnex Stage 2 project, which touched on both landfill and civil engineering. The project involved capping and remediating a landfill site in order to construct a massive highway intersection above it, at an inner-city Sydney site surrounded by residential, industrial and green space zones. It was a complex engineering challenge with many stakeholders and challenges.
The technical capabilities Laura demonstrated as a civil designer on the project impressed colleagues (and our judges), however her approach to the task was what really set her apart from her peers. Not only did Laura ace the design aspect of the project, she had to balance and meet the demands of the range of stakeholders, including the client, local residents, project end users, the NSW EPA, local commercial and industrial business, DPIE, and the site auditor – no mean feat when you think about the challenges of being a young consultant in the construction sector, yet Laura took it all in her stride, handling high pressure situations with a level in a self-assured and respectful way.
Over the years, Laura’s personal and professional engagement with the WARR sector has only deepened. As Laura told Inside Waste, that position enabled her to align her interests “not only in the projects on which I have worked, but also the support and encouragement I have had to contribute to charitable organisations outside of work, such as my volunteer work at Ozharvest”.
In addition to all that she does, Laura also takes the time to mentor and train her co-workers in the civil design space and she has won high praise from her colleagues for her peer leadership and ability to improve her team’s productivity, as well as her dedication to upskilling across different disciplines and task areas. She has also chaired an internal sustainability committee at Golder, has volunteered with OzHarvest and on construction projects in Tanzania. She is currently acting as a senior engineer at GHD.
Our judges praised Laura’s engagement with sustainability and mentoring initiatives. They said that Laura has demonstrated both technical excellence and self-awareness, and that she “stepped up to engage with different levels” while working on a critical infrastructure project. Well done Laura!