Hi there!!

I am writing this at 3.30am from an apartment in Brisbane where I am a few days from finishing a work “gig” with civil construction company.

When I left Watson High I went to Uni. I spent the first year at ANU and then moved onto Sydney Uni where I completed a civil engineering degree.  Uni was a blast – it was soooo much fun.  During that time I spent a couple of years boarding at St Andrews, the “finishing school for blokes”, which did not deserve the notoriety it gained later in a book by a disgruntled principal. The guy must have been a loser ;).

After Uni I came back to Canberra where I worked for 10 years with a civil consulting house before jumping the fence to the contracting side (the “dark side”).  I have remained on the contracting side ever since. It’s more satisfying – actually get to build stuff and see it finished.  I continued to work in Canberra for quite a number of years with a variety of construction companies and eventually joined Thiess in the early 90’s. After a few years with Thiess, the Canberra construction industry suffered one of its regular dry spells and Thiess persuaded me to move to the bright lights of Sydney in 1994.

During my early post-Uni years I rented a house on a property outside of Hall with a couple of likely lads including, in the beginning, Paul Kwaczynski and Ian Howe.  It was a heap of fun.  I recall how Paul, Ian and I spent one winter living in a circa 1900 farmhouse that had all the amenity and convenience of that era, before moving into the luxury of the main 1960’s farmhouse where the tank water was at least connected to a pump and also connected to a hot water system, and the main farmhouse also had an electric stove.  So many stories.

The faces at the farmhouse changed over time and around 1978 one of them led me to meet my future wife, Martha. Martha went off to Europe for a while and I bought a house in Higgins (I know ….) but eventually life brought us back together.  We have two kids, Chelsea, who is now 21 and Jackson, who is 14.  Both still at home and Martha is very happy about that. When we moved from Canberra to Sydney we built a house in Frenchs Forest which is where we are still living today.

I left Thiess a few years ago and have been working ever since as an independent civil contractor.  What that means is that I do short term assignments with whomever needs my talents (lol!!!).  This takes me away from Sydney from time to time and is the reason why I am writing this from an apartment in Brisbane.  My next assignment is back in Sydney and will run for  around 6 months – I’m looking forward to spending more time back home.

Looking forward to October as well!!!

Cheers

Koby