Sharon Manssen was good at maths in school, as well as doing ok in art. She says, “when the career guidance counsellor suggested architecture, I thought, crikey! What if I design something and it falls down? So I decided instead to become an engineer.”
She laughs. “Obviously, I had no idea what engineering was about, as it’s the engineering that fails! Then I was told girls don’t do engineering, and that was a red flag to a bull. Don’t ever tell me I can’t do something!”
Here you begin to sense the steel in a woman who opted to enter what was then a predominantly male profession.
“I’m a Kiwi but most of my education was in Belgium, and I worked hard at school and took exams in Flemish. I’d done the pre-requisite subjects at high school: maths, chemistry and physics. I wanted a career that took me outdoors, and work that would improve our planet. I decided on environmental engineering.”
Her university course and external training has taught her what engineering is, and the power it has to deliver solutions.
“Engineering is making something work; it’s problem-solving. For example, an architect ‘designs’ what a building will look like. The engineer ‘designs’ the building to fulfil what the architect envisaged, to make sure the building, when finished, won’t collapse.”
Sharon pauses to reflect. “If you think about it, there are many forces at work on what we humans build: wind and rain, earthquakes, the strength of the soil and the weight of the structure itself. An engineer must take them all into account, along with the properties of the materials used to ensure they’re strong enough to meet pre-set requirements.
“This could be, ‘Let’s put something together that will last for a century,’ or ‘We’ll make it strong to the extent that people inside have time to get out before it collapses.’ Hardly anything can be designed never to fail. Often we’re limited by cost.”
Structural engineering is a 4-year degree course. The first – or intermediate year – you can do at any university; Sharon did hers at Victoria University.
“Then you decide what kind of engineer you want to be,” she explains. “Back in 1990 when there were only two engineering schools in New Zealand, your options were limited. I did a mix of civil and mechanical engineering at Canterbury in my second year.
“Then I added extra papers in my third and fourth year, including some agricultural engineering at Lincoln University.”
Her choice wasn’t exactly popular: there were only three students in that final year. Sharon also had to make practical experience a priority for vacation work.
“You can’t graduate without those hours. Over three summers I worked as a builder’s labourer, on a dairy farm, then at Wellington Regional Council doing flood modelling. And after graduating, you must gain professional experience before you’re chartered, like a lawyer going for the bar. I became a chartered engineer after I’d been working for six years.”
MORE WOMEN NEEDED
Sharon admits it’s still a predominantly male profession. “My entire working life there’s only been about one female engineer to ten male.”
Currently she works for a global, multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy that wants to recruit 50/50.
“Too many women drop out of the workforce when they start a family. It’s a challenge the industry is working on. Hopefully, flexible work practices will help women stay in the profession.”
Sharon first met her husband Craig at university. Somehow they’ve always managed as working parents.
“Our son Lucas was born when we were both working in Bangkok. We returned to New Zealand and found work in Auckland. We had no family support, so Lucas was in full-time day care. Two months later I found out I was pregnant again.”
Sharon wasn’t entitled to maternity leave because she’d been with the company for less than a year (as was then the law.)
“So when Craig was asked to transfer back to Bangkok, earning double our joint salaries, meaning I could stay home with the kids, we jumped at the chance. I worked part-time and we had a nanny and a fantastic work-life balance. We stayed for six years.”
When the couple returned home, both worked full-time with the same company, though eventually in different roles.
“And yes, we split the household chores down the middle. It’s an equal partnership.”
Sharon has completed a variety of projects over the years, and probably most enjoyed river floodplain modelling.
“My team had to research all the factors before producing the final hydrodynamic model. We incorporated the river flow based on rainfall and river flow data to predict for different outcomes. When a flood occurred, out we’d go to examine ‘flood marks,’ the line of debris left at its maximum level – flattened grass, deposited sticks and plastic bags. We’d also take aerial photographs through a hole in the floor of a tiny plane! Once I got to fly in a helicopter to check out the damage to the headwaters in a gully up the Otaki River.
“Then we started playing with ‘what if’ scenarios. What if we raise the stopbanks? What if we widen the river? What if we lower the river bed? This lets you figure out what each would cost to build what’s most feasible.”
It’s clearly evident Sharon has never regretted her career decision, though engineering design is hugely complex and clients often don’t understand or appreciate that complexity. Often they only want the cheapest solution, and engineers like Sharon must step in and, hopefully, guide them towards what will work best.
FIND YOUR PASSION AND BACK YOURSELF
What’s her advice to young men, and particularly young women, wanting to enter the engineering profession today? “Back yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do. Yes, it’s hard, and it’s a truly rewarding career and you can work anywhere in the world. Every project is different and always challenging, with new problems to be solved. But as society and our planet change and adapt, so too do our solutions. That’s the pure thrill of it.”
Sharon is engineer, wife and mother – she’s also a writer (and President of Tauranga Writers.) What drew her into something that seems so markedly different from what she’s based her primary career on?
She’s smiling as she answers. “Stories also begin with an idea, a concept, and plots give you so many problems to work out. I’ve always been an avid reader of fantasy fiction, and one day about fifteen years ago, I realised I had a story inside me that needed telling. So I set about writing it.”
Sharon has completed two books in her Realm Trilogy. In Medar, the land- locked country ruled by a despot, Freya, poor and half-blind, finds a mysterious tablet of stone and begins a dangerous quest. In Tyrelia, she travels on further, finding companions to help. The sequel, The Golden City, delayed by Covid-19, is due out later this year.
Like all projects that Sharon Manssen undertakes, actual and fictional, the series Realm Trilogy promises challenges and change.
