Brad Rooney
Business Development Leader, Principal Engineer - Mitton ElectroNet
After completing my B.Eng with honours in 2008, I started a graduate programme with Hydro Tasmania. Rotating through the substation design, major projects and strategic engineering teams gave me an overview of the business and awareness of where I best fit in the electricity industry. I was fortunate enough to work on 500 kV substation designs, be the site electrical engineer for a 50 MW hydro generator refurbishment and gain insight into how a five year asset strategy plan is developed.
Having progressed into a Senior Engineer role at Hydro Tasmania, I joined a start-up consultancy in AU which provided an opportunity to broaden my horizons beyond pure technical engineering. I now have returned to NZ and am the Business Development Leader and a Principal Engineer at Mitton ElectroNet. It’s an invigorating and diverse role in which I’m responsible for our business growth and customer relationships.
The electricity industry has a huge opportunity at present, with a focus on innovation and the uptake of exponential technologies such as solar, batteries, EVs, virtual reality and machine learning. I recently had my DNA modified, participating in the Lighting Lab Electric innovation accelerator with a machine learning based protection application. It’s incredibly exciting to be part of the generation that will integrate these technologies into the power system and work with future scholars who have focussed their studies in these areas.
Brad awarded the EPECentre Undergraduate Scholarship in 2007.
Published December 2017