Garry Heyes
Procurement and Property Services Manager - Orion
Garry joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force out of school. While in the Air Force, where he was an avionics technician specialising in radar, he gained a National Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering and a NZ Certificate in Engineering – the equivalent of a Diploma of Engineering nowadays. After eight years of having his rough edges straightened out he decided to regain some of them and travelled around Europe and Africa for two years.
On his return to New Zealand he was a direct entry in to the 2nd professional year BE(hons) at University of Canterbury, completing his degree with first class honours in 2006. Along with the Electrical Power Engineering Centre scholarships, he was also awarded the NGC and Electrical Engineer’s Association scholarships while at University of Canterbury.
After university, Garry entered the power industry working for Transpower, initially as a project manager, managing various substation and transmission projects around the South Island, then as the maintenance manager of the High Voltage DC interisland link.
“It was pretty exciting times as there was a lot going on. The new Pole 3 HVDC link project was underway, I was responsible for decommissioning a piece of New Zealand’s power electronics history in the form of Pole 1 - after 47 years of service, as well as trying to keep Pole 2 humming with all this invasive work going on all around it”.
In 2013 Garry joined Orion as the Contract Works Manager – Distribution, assisting with the post-earthquake rebuild and finishing off a part time Master of Business Administration at University of Canterbury in 2014. In 2018 he took up a new role as Procurement and Property Services Manager and is enjoying the applied engineering aspects of the work, as well as seeing if he can get an even longer job title.
Published August 2019