After 59 years, Hawke's Bay quantity surveyor Brian Eddy picks a $20m job to sign off with

Now he's retired Brian Eddy wants to go out and do more fly fishing but also take his camper van and do more trips away with his wife Ngaire. Photo / Paul Taylor

After 59 years of work Brian Eddy has signed off on his career as a quantity surveyor.

The 76-year-old said it was the right time to stop, having just finished his last major project, the newly-opened $20 million Hastings Health Centre.

"I just thought it was the right time to stop.

"You can't keep going forever and plus I have other things I want to do, like fly-fishing which I'm quite keen at plus my wife and I have a camper van so it will be good to do a few more trips in that as well."

Eddy said his wife did try to get him to stop a few years ago when things had started to quieten down for him.

"She did try to get me to retire about eight years ago when business got quiet and I seriously considered it back then, but then jobs started to pile back up so I just kept on going."

Eddy said he got into the industry when he was only 17, just because there was a job vacancy.

He decided to take it and has spent most of his 59-year career since then based in Hawke's Bay.

"I was in sixth form and the career advisor asked what I wanted to do for a job and I had no idea so they told me about a company that had a job vacancy and then from there I never looked back," Eddy said.

Quantity surveyors manage finances for construction projects. They calculate budgets based on clients' requirements, and prepare detailed estimates to ensure budgets are sufficient for each stage of construction.

Eddy says that the industry has changed quite a bit over the years.

"Some of the kids these days can do a lot of the things on the computer now but I always preferred the old fashioned way of doing things," Eddy said.

"I did always try to keep up with the changing ways of doing things, maybe not as much as I could have, but I always found if I kept my ear to the ground I learnt new things along the way."

Having spent so long in the same industry, he never felt like changing things up and finding a new career to pursue.

"I've never really considered doing anything else because I've always really enjoyed what I've done and I always met new and interesting people along the way."