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Jackie Adams
Priniciple Compliance Advisor for Energy and Resource Markets with MBIE
Jackie Adams is from Belfast in Northern Ireland, and started his Career with the British Army as a Royal Engineer working in water supply and water treatment before leaving to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary working as a Police Detective in Belfast.
He came to New Zealand in 2006 to work as a Detective with the New Zealand Police, after leaving the Police he was the Regulatory Manager for the West Coast Regional Council before leaving to join MBIE.
At present Jackie is the Principle Compliance Advisor for Energy and Resource Markets with MBIE, responsible for compliance under the Crown Minerals Act for Minerals and Petroleum.
Chris Allen
Federated Farmers - Debate with Waikato Regional Council - National and Regional planning frameworks
Chris grew up on a sheep and beef farm in Tirau, Waikato. On leaving High School, he completed an Aircraft Maintenance engineering apprenticeship and worked for Air New Zealand for 15 years and qualified as a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer.
Since 1994 Chris and his wife Anne-Marie have been farming Annadale, a 360 hectare irrigated sheep, beef and cropping property in Mid Canterbury. The property had water consents that we had to be renewed under the new RMA â Chrisâs Intro to the RMA. Annadale is a fully spray irrigated property with some stored on farm water, running five small centre pivots, one lateral/pivot and two Rotorainer irrigaters. They use real time telemetry on irrigation to monitor water flow, soil moisture, pivot operations and water supply from a local river. Direct involvement with Farming issues, he was Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury Provincial President for three years from 2011.
In 2014 Chris was appointed to the Ashburton Water Management Zone Committee as a community member. In 2014 he was elected to Federated Farmers National Board with responsibility for RMA, Water & Environment. In 2015 he was Appointed to the governance group of Good Management Practices project in Canterbury.
Chris is a trustee for the Bio diversity collaborative group to provide government with a draft Biodiversity NPS and also a report on complimentary and supporting measures.
Chris is passionate about the interface of Water, farming and Environment
Alzbeta Bouskova, PhD
Carbon Neutral Industrial Wastewater Treatment - A Dream or Target?
Alzbeta has a Master of Science and PhD in wastewater technology. Alzbetaâs expertise is in waste and wastewater treatment technologies, with main focus on anaerobic digestion of waste sludge and solid waste. During her professional career, Alzbeta has gained extensive practical experience in organics and nutrient removal process design, optimisation, and upgrades. She has also attained valuable exposure to project management and technology research and development. Alzbeta has led the design of many anaerobic digester systems and investigations of waste and wastewater treatment systems. Alzbeta is the current convener of the Biogas Interest Group within the Bioenergy Association of New Zealand
Eike Breitbarth
Applications of optical process control and on-line microbial monitoring
Eike is the head of REZO Ltd, a Dunedin based company specializing in optical sensors and automated systems for water quality monitoring and process control. He has a background as an environmental scientist with over 15 years of international experience in aquatic research.
In recent years, his work with optical sensors contributed technological innovation to council monitoring and industrial process control in NZ and AU. Eike perceives sustainability in an economic and ecologic coherence and sees water as one of our most important assets.
Troy Brockbank
The character of Industrial Stormwater
Stormwater pollutant monitoring - How to do it and how to interpret it
âTroy Brockbank (Te Rarawa, NgÄti Hine, NgÄpuhi) is a civil engineer and the Design Manager with Stormwater360 New Zealand. He has over 10 years professional experience in the stormwater industry across engineering consultancies, civil contractors & suppliers. He has developed specialist skills in investigation, design, manufacture, construction, and project management of stormwater management devices for public, private, and industrial developments. Recently he has provided technical advice to Iwi for environmental & 3-water matters.
He has developed a real passion and ability for water sensitive design, in particular solutions to protect and restore the quality of waterways and the environment.
He considers himself an intermediary, having the advantage of seeing aspects from both an engineering and a Te Ao MÄori world view. He is passionate about the widespread adoption of a holistic culturally enhanced water sensitive design approach and will continue working towards raising awareness as a leader in this field both nationally and internationally.â
Dr Peter Hulmston
Case Study - A cost effective solution for flow monitoring at WWP influent channel
Dr Peter Hulmston studied BSc Chemistry and completed his PhD at the University of Aston in Birmingham, UK, 1976 â 1982.  He has been a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry for 38 years. Is a Chartered Chemist and Chartered Scientist. Has held previous appointments in Government Establishments, Nottinghamshire Police, and commercial industry, all in the UK. Came to New Zealand in 2009. Based in Wellington he is currently in sales as Territory Manager for New Zealand with the John Morris Group
Karl Dewstow
Pipeline Applications Specialist, Vermeer Corporation
Karl is in his fifth year at Vermeer, and began his career focused on Horizontal Directional Drills,working in both the HDD mini and maxi-rig drills, offering him a variety of experiences in trenchless engineering and design. Since the development of the AXISÂź Guided Boring System, Karl has served as an integral member of the AXIS product support team. As this new method of trenchless installation travels around the world, Jeff has traveled with it, assisting with installations primarily in Australia, but also in the Philippines and New Zealand.
Prior to his tenure at Vermeer, Karl worked extensively in the field of HDD as a trainer /consultant. Karlâs experiences across the Vermeer trenchless team have helped him to develop a unique perspective on the value trenchless installation methods â most recently, what AXIS â can offer a world with rapidly growing infrastructure development and rehabilitation needs.
Andrew Chin
Andrew is the Aucklandâs Waters Programme Manager at Auckland Council and is currently leading the development of the Aucklandâs Waters Strategy. This strategy reflects Auckland Councilâs role as a unitary authority and will encompass all waters, including natural surface waters, stormwater, wastewater, drinking water, groundwater, estuarine, and marine.
Andrewâs 19 year career in the water industry has taken him across many disciplines in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, from engineering design, construction, asset management and now strategic planning in both the public and private sectors.
Andrew is qualified as both an engineer and a planner with Bachelors in Environmental Engineering from Massey University, and a Masters in Planning Practice from Auckland University. Bringing together these two qualifications at the start of his career was an important step towards obtaining his current role. This has put him in a position to guide the development of Auckland to achieve better water quality outcomes, which is at the heart of what motivates him.
Ben Hall
New developments in suspended solids monitoring
Ben is an instrumentation engineer, a director and the major share holder in Instrumatics. Ben is Instrumaticsâ Sales Manager and has worked with Instrumatics for more than 38 years performing roles within sales, service and commissioning. He has an extensive knowledge of NZ Primary Industries, infrastructure and the general NZ market, together with significant expertise in measurement technologies.
Ben has in depth knowledge of water and waste water instrumentation and was involved in the development of the Quadbeam suspended solids instruments. Beginning with suspended solids measurements for the pulp and paper industry Instrumatics applied this technology in the dairy industry for the detection of milk losses. This led to the development of a New Zealand made sensor specifically designed for the dairy industry.
Ben has a wealth of knowledge and experience in instrumentation, having installed and commissioned instruments throughout New Zealand in all areas of industry. With particular skills in instrumentation for level, gas detection, flow, temperature, pH and water quality. Ben is respected within the industry as a person who gets things done. If you need an Instrumentation solution for just about any application, he would be pleased to assist you.
Ron Hamilton
High Rate anaerobic digestion of high strength dairy waste
Ron Hamilton, commenced working in the Dairy Industry back in 1979. He became âWorks Chemistâ for the then new and being built Tirau Casein Factory. In this role he managed product grading activities- (Laboratory) and provided technical support for the casein manufacturing plant. The wastewater plant took a lot of his time from late in 1983 when a facultative wastewater pond was converted to an Anaerobic Digester- in fact to become the largest single industrial site wastewater process in Australasia- after the all aerobic treatment system failed to cope with wastewater load. In 1988 he became âDistillery Managerâ and converted the Tirau batch distillery to a continuous fermentation process- the first such in the world. He had a brief stint as âGeneral Managerâ of the Anchor Ethanol company- selling multi- million litre shipments of âwhey alcoholâ into the Japanese NEDO tender. He became site Environmental Manager in the mid 1990âs and then took a role in Fonterraâs Environmental Technical Group later, training operators in the dark art of wastewater treatment and providing technical support for Environmental Initiatives in New Zealand and off shore. Most of his holidays are spent in Australia spending time with his two Grand-children.
Chris Moore
Stormwater system upgrade, design and performance
Chris Moore is an Associate Civil Engineer at Beca Tauranga. He has over 15 yearsâ experience Civil Engineering and specialising in stormwater. He has been involved in abroad range of projects ranging from industrial stormwater, large scale roading projects, land development, airports and engineering predevelopment studies. Recently Chris has been leading Becaâs stormwater design for Fonterra and helped in the development of Fonterraâs stormwater design standards. He is also leading the civil design on Tauranga City Councilâs new Waiari Water Supply project.
Tara Okan
Industry and Technology
Tara is a water quality scientist and is responsible for safeguarding all aspects of water quality through scientific analysis and the setting of targets and standards in response to specific legislation. He specialises in comparing test results with these standards, investigate shortfalls and takes action to remedy problems.
Richard Rollins
Industrial Stormwater Considerations for Trade Waste Officers
Richard worked at WSP Opus in New Plymouth and has over 25 years of experience in of civil and environmental process engineering at industrial facilities including oil and gas, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, chemical, and food processing plants. His work includes management of processing and water projects in industrial and public works settings with responsibility for the design and installation of chemical piping, hazardous material and waste storage systems. He conducts wastewater treatment and network investigations, plan and execute water supply, stormwater and wastewater projects. He has also worked as a trade waste investigator in Auckland and New Plymouth.
Grant Smith
A River: The View from the top - PNCC's wastewater BPO process
Grant Smith is the Mayor of Palmerston North. He was first elected to Council in 2013 and then elected Mayor in a by-election in 2015. He has an extensive background managing small to medium sized business and has managed multiple sporting events. Grant is committed to the economic, social and cultural wellbeing of our city, and strives to be a leader in environmental sustainability.
Palmerston North City Council is working through a Wastewater Best Practicable Option review as an investigation and planning process to determine a preferred wastewater treatment and disposal option for the City. This will culminate in an application for consents with the Regional Council.
Michael Speer
Use of Aerofloat dissolved air flotation technology to improve trade waste discharges from meat processors
Michael Speer is a Project Manager for Apex Environmental, a New Zealand company specialising in design, build and commissioning of environmental
systems for the treatment of industrial and municipal wastewater. Michael is experienced in the operation of complex water and wastewater treatment plants, with specialist knowledge in CIPâs, filtration systems and continuous process improvement.
In his time at Apex he has been involved with both biological and physiochemical treatment processes.
Michaels completed projects are Villa Maria Te Awa Winery Hastings, Hellers Kaiapoi, Van den Brink Poultry Christchurch, Hydro Flow Melbourne and GlaxoSmithKline Australia.
