Four new young rail professionals have joined the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) Young Leaders Advisory Board (Y-LAB).
The new members are:
- Jane Gillespie, senior consultant at Arup;
- Josh Steed, team lead at SNC Lavalin;
- Melanie Bowden, area manager at CPB Contractors; and
- Alexander Daview, project manager at the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC).
In addition to the four new members, the ARA has appointed two reserve members to step in for vacancies that may arise due to career movements. The reserve members are; Tahni Littlejohn, systems analyst manager at Transport Canberra and City Services, and Karthik Krishna Kumar, project manager at Bombardier.
The new members join the four continuing Y-LAB members.
The Y-LAB is part of the ARA’s push for involvement in the rail industry from a younger generation of the workforce. The thoughts and insights of this group have been incorporated into the workings of the ARA, said ARA chair and acting CEO, Danny Broad.
“The Inaugural Y-LAB made a big impact last year, giving us some clear direction on how to attract a younger workforce, participating in the ARA Board’s Strategy Day to develop our 2019-24 strategic plan and many other key contributions.”
Broad was enthusiastic about the participation of younger members of the rail industry in the program and what this meant for the industry as a whole.
“The fact that we had such a strong field to draw from, with 37 applicants is testament to the eagerness of younger employees to contribute to the future of our industry and I look forward to working with the second iteration of Y-LAB in the year ahead.”
Arup will host the first meeting of Y-LAB for 2020 on March 3, in Sydney.
Broad acknowledged the work that the outgoing members have done.
“I’d like to thank our outgoing members, Jamie Ross-Smith of UniPart, Tegan Ball of Queensland Rail, Amy Lezela of Metro Trains Melbourne and Mike Groves of Network Rail Consulting for their contributions during 2019.”