Gretchen worked as a chemical engineer in New Zealand and England for 18 years before moving into senior management at UNITEC in Auckland. She is currently Head of Abbey College, a residential college for postgraduate students at the University of Otago.
Gretchen was Chair of the Auckland Branch in 1984 and President of IPENZ in 1998. She has been a Director of Telarc/Accreditation NZ, Worley Consultants and the Land Transport Safety Authority, and was a member of the Council of the Centre for Advanced Engineering.
Gretchen has been a judge for the Engineering Excellence Awards for four Years and currently chairs the panel for Awards recognising People.
Roly Frost
FIPENZ
Roly is a Director of Beca Infrastructure Ltd, based in Tauranga with a special focus on the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions.
He started his career with the Ministry of Works and progressed into management positions as the Ministry went through the change process from a government department to initially a State Owned Enterprise and finally to a private consultancy. He has held General Manager positions in the infrastructure field both in the private sector with Beca and the public sector with Transit New Zealand.
Roly continues to be active in IPENZ having held the positions of Branch Chair, President and is currently on the Chartered Professional Engineers Council.
He has various governance roles on project management boards, trusts and Beca Infrastructure Ltd.
John
Cunningham
FIPENZ
John is Executive Director of Ignition Partner Ltd; a company he and a partner established in 2002 to advise companies on strategies for high growth including technology, IP, structure and capital. He started his career as a chemical engineer and progressed into commercial operations and then into business and venture capital.
John spent several years in company development, operations management and senior executive roles in listed corporates. He is a Senior Fellow at Waikato University and was President of IPENZ in 2001. He chairs an advisory Borad for FRST and is a Director of HIT Lab NZ ltd and Cawthron Institute. When not working he enjoys flying planes and walking guide dog puppies.
RM (Bob) Hodgson FIPENZ, FIET, SMIEEE
On his retirement from the Massey University School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Bob was made "Professor Emeritus", that is professor for life. In his long career he served on many professional and academic bodies in a range of roles including: Chairman of the New Zealand Council of Engineering Deans (NZCED), member of the IPENZ Standards and Accreditation Board, the IEEE Region 1O Executive, President of the Association of Engineering Education in South and East Asia and the Pacific (AEESEAP), and numerous Washington Accord international panels. His research work in Digital Image processing is well known. He has also led the development of a number of
accredited bachelor of engineering majors in areas of advanced technology.
Dennis
Chapman FIPENZ
Dennis
Chapman, Technical Director with Enatel Ltd, Christchurch,
is an outstanding example of an engineer who based a company
on his own product developments and grew that company quickly
to substantial scale. He has invested huge amounts of time
and money in working with schools, and also travelling to
meet Government officials driven by the goal of improving
technology education for young New Zealanders. His efforts
in no small way contributed to technology education becoming
established in our school system.
Peter Browne FIPENZ
Peter Browne is a professional engineer and self-employed engineering consultant who has spent his career to date in the electricity supply industry in various engineering and management roles. He is a current director of The Lines Company Ltd.
Peter is a past Chairman of IPENZ Wellington Branch and was an ex officio member of the IPENZ Council. He served for three years as Council’s Hon Secretary Treasurer and was appointed by the IPENZ Board to be a trustee of IPENZ Benevolent Fund, the Institution’s former charitable organisation. He retired from this position when this Fund was wound up and its assets were transferred to the Foundation but is looking forward to being a trustee of the Foundation with its larger scope of support functions.
