ACTIVE MIND: Throughout his long career Alen Bickers has shown a willingness to keep learning.
Alan Bickers' long and successful career has included a nine-year term as chief executive of Tauranga City Council.
It has been marked by an openness to pursuing new interests alongside his initial love of engineering.
"People keep coming along and asking me to do interesting things," he said.
"When it's interesting I'll do it. If not I say no."
Born in India to a family that had been there since the 1800s, Mr Bickers came to New Zealand as a toddler with his parents when they left in 1948 after India gained its independence from Britain.
"My grandfather was involved with the East Indian Railways and I seem to have had a number of engineers in the family on both sides."
Mr Bickers grew up in Auckland, and after graduating from the University of Auckland with a civil engineering degree went to work for the Ministry of Works as a bridge construction engineer, based in Palmerston North.
After a few years, he moved into local government and spent the next 25 years in a series of local government jobs with a strong focus on the waste water sector.
His roles included serving as assistant borough engineer for Gore Borough Council and borough engineer for Dannevirke Borough Council, before returning to Palmerston North where he was successively the city's divisional engineer, deputy city engineer and then city engineer.
His connection to Tauranga arose from a role running the Auckland office for a Tauranga-based consultancy in the 1980s. His principal client was the 1990 Commonwealth Games, but the firm was also doing work for the Tauranga City Council.
"I came down one day to do a presentation to the council and they told me the chief executive's job was vacant," he said. "I applied and got duly appointed."
That was in 1985 and he has remained in Tauranga ever since.
After serving nine years as chief executive, he became a private consultant and company director, working as a resource management commissioner, and increasingly focusing on arbitration and mediation.
Along the way he has had a number of governance roles, including serving as the formative chairman of the Building Practitioners Board, and as chairman of Transit New Zealand.
He served on the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board and was a member of the Standards Council.
He is also a past president and Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Professional Engineers and a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Directors New Zealand.
Mr Bickers also recently retired as the chairman of Destination Rotorua.
Mr Bickers was appointed to the board of Trustpower a year ago and was recently also appointed to the board of the Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ).
On his appointment, BRANZ chairwoman Dr Helen Anderson said the organisation needed robust governance skills to consistently transform research into accessible, actionable knowledge.
"Alan will be able to contribute enormous insight and experience to this task."
Trustpower chief executive Vince Hawksworth said Mr Bickers brought a number of qualities to the board, including valuable insights into the vibe of the local Bay of Plenty community, as well as his professional engineering expertise.
"In particular, he brings his experience on asset use in an environmental context from his work as a panel member and commissioner on large-scale environmental processes," said Mr Hawksworth.
"And he's very collegial - he likes good debate and consensus decisionmaking."
Mr Bickers was made a Member of New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014 for his services to the community. He also serves as a Justice of the Peace.
Throughout his career, Mr Bickers has shown a willingness to keep learning.
He went back to university in his 50s and at the age of 60 completed a postgraduate diploma in dispute resolution.
"I always found the interface between engineering and law to be an interesting area of work," he said.
In addition to his directorships, Mr Bickers - who will be 70 next month - is active in delivering continuing professional development programmes for engineers on issues such as negligence, liability and giving expert evidence.
"My wife used to say, 'why do you keep on doing this?'" he said. "I told her I needed a retirement job."