Faces of the CRL - Rob Mair
Name: Rob Mair
Age: 44
Suburb: Campbells Bay, North Shore
How long have you been working with CRL? Since September 2018
What is your role? General Manager, Health Safety Environment & Sustainability
How do you do it? My role is in two parts. The first is about ensuring that we build the City Rail Link whilst protecting the safety and health of the workforce, members of the public and our neighbours. That’s a massive challenge as there will be tens of thousands of people who are involved with this project from start to finish and they work for many different organisations, doing very different roles. We do know that construction is inherently dangerous work, and New Zealand has an important journey to go on to ensure that everyone goes home safely at the end of each day. We want to play a central part in that. This means we establish H&S standards to which all our contractors must work, and we monitor compliance with those. My team work closely with our suppliers to ensure that incidents are investigated thoroughly and that the lessons are shared across the project. We also contribute towards industry-led initiatives designed to deliver better health and safety outcomes for the broader construction industry. The second part is about environmental and sustainability management. This means that we set the strategy and framework to which our suppliers must adhere to reduce the amount of resources and energy that are used in building the project, and as far as possible ensure that we reuse or recycle any materials used in the project build. We also have a Social Outcomes team within the Link Alliance, who amongst other things manage a progressive employment scheme to provide employment opportunities to disadvantaged Māori and Pasifika youth, and promote social procurement principles.
What do you enjoy most about your job? CRL has brought together an incredibly talented team from across New Zealand and overseas, and in my job, I enjoy working with a lot of great people doing amazing things!
Most challenging part? Sometimes things go wrong, and people are hurt as a result. We are fortunate that we’ve not had any serious injuries on this project, and we are working hard to keep it that way. Dealing with the impact that serious accidents have on people and their families will always be the hardest part of the job.
Previous jobs? Since graduating, I worked in transport for London for 20 or so years, doing lots of different roles in operations, safety and project delivery. Before that I was a mortgage advisor!
Hobbies? I love teaching and playing Brazilian samba percussion (check out Unidos de Aotearoa on Facebook!), fishing and spending time with my family. I am also interested in education and am on the Board of Trustees for Forrest Hill School.
What are you looking forward to most about when the CRL is complete? The sense of pride that I had a part to play in building it and the benefits that having a modern metro system will deliver for Aucklanders.