New staff and skills for Whanganui's WSP Opus office

WSP Opus has welcomed new staff and students (from left) Julian Kasner, Melayna Yukhnevich, Anthony Rooke, Ai Lena Tomioka, Carlos Gaona and Melody Che.

A wealth of new faces and skills are adding to the talent at the Whanganui office of WSP Opus.

WSP Opus, formerly Opus International Consultants, is an engineering professional services consulting firm.

Whanganui business manager Jenny Harrison said three new permanent staff had joined the Whanganui team in recent months and an intern had done work experience over the summer.

In addition, WSP Opus currently has two students from Earlham College in the United States doing voluntary work experience.

Anthony Rooke has been with the company since October in the new role of principal bridge engineer.

A main part of Mr Rooke's role is managing state highway bridges for the NZ Transport Agency in the Taranaki, Manawatu and Whanganui regions.

Originally from Wales, he, wife Joanne and New Zealand-born 10-year-old son Connor have moved to Whanganui from Brisbane.

"I was with Opus for nearly 10 years in Christchurch and for the last five years we have been in Brisbane," Mr Rooke said.

"I was talking to Opus about coming back to New Zealand. As a family, we wanted to be in a smaller community and Whanganui was one of the areas we talked about. We did some research, had a look and it appealed. It has been everything we hoped for."

Melanya Yukhnevich also brings new skills to the company. An ecologist with experience in regional councils, she is now training to be a planner.

"Planning is such a broad field that I thought I could learn something new but still get to do my ecology stuff," Miss Yukhnevich said.

"I'm gaining a new skill-set and I really like Whanganui. I've sunk my teeth into planning with resource consent applications and I'm learning on the job."

Ms Harrison said Miss Yukhnevich's science background would give the company an extra dimension, particularly in rural and earthworks planning.

Carlos Gaona has joined WSP Opus as a graduate engineer after finishing his civil engineering degree at the University of Canterbury.

Mr Gaona is from Colombia, where his family still lives, and moved to New Zealand to study.

He is finding his feet after starting work a month ago and has been reviewing bridge permits in relation to truck movements, has been on bridge inspections and is updating bridge data.

"I'm not sure what area of engineering I will end up in. I want to try different things and see which aspect of engineering I like more."

Julian Kasner has been a summer intern at WSP Opus. Originally from Whanganui, he is in his fourth year of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Auckland.

"The information I've gained in the last two months is more practically applicable than a year at university," Mr Kasner said.

"I'm specialising in environmental engineering and I'd like to get into water and wastewater engineering."

Melody Che and Ai Lena Tomioka are part of a group of 16 Earlham College students who are spending four months in New Zealand, based in Whanganui. Both are geology majors with Ms Tomioka also studying psychology.

The students are doing voluntary work as part of their course, with Ms Che and Ms Tomioka getting out in the field with WSP Opus and finding out about "jobs we didn't know existed".

"I want to work in geology in some way but I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do," Ms Che said.

"Working with WSP Opus has given me a good chance to see what it's like."

Ms Tomioka said she was interested in eventually working in disaster rehabilitation.

"It encompasses both my fields [geology and psychology] quite well - understanding the geology of disasters and getting the community back up on its feet."