Engineering graduate Chris Shields is aiming high in his career, while finding plenty of opportunities to have a bit of fun along the way.

A few years ago, while in England as a graduate engineer, Chris joined with housemates to spend hundreds of pounds on a backyard fireworks extravaganza to make the most of a legal cracker night.

Chris Shields ... rocketing ahead

That sort of sums Chris up ... you get plenty of bang from this buck!

He recently became among the youngest (possibly the youngest) to have achieved registration at both state and national levels with professional engineering organisations.

Chris completed Engineers Australia's competency-based chartership process to attain national registration as a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) in May 2008, followed closely by acceptance as a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland (RPEQ) through the Board of Professional Engineers in August 2008, all by the age of 26.

Earlier in life, while growing up in Maryborough, Chris gained encouragement from his draftsman father and office administrator mother, who were always supportive of his endeavours.

He moved to Rockhampton in 2000 and studied Bachelor of Engineering (Co-op)(Civil) at CQUniversity, gaining the highest result in Transportation Engineering and graduating with First Class Honours.

Chris gained undergraduate work experience with Thiess Pty Ltd at Gladstone's Awoonga Dam, at Rockhampton City Council and with Graham Scott & Associates (Engineering Consultants) in Rockhampton. He then headed over to live in England for 2 years and worked for Atkins Consultants Ltd in Stafford as a graduate engineer.

Chris in a more formal setting

Currently, he's a Project Engineer/Project Manager at Cardno (Qld) Pty Ltd (Engineering Consultants) in Rockhampton.

But it's not all been work and no play!

Soon after moving to CQUniversity, Chris began dating education student (now graduate and primary teacher) Rebecca Hinton. [Rebecca was also part of the great fireworks incident in England and was with Chris in Norway when he proposed to her on a frozen lake in late 2005.]

The pair got married in a beach wedding at the end of last year, showing their harmony by serenading guests at the reception (Chris on guitar and Rebecca vocals).

Chris also gets enough time away from work to tutor high school students in maths, play guitar and indoor soccer, renovate his house and volunteer for the Cancer Council Relay for Life.

Most of his working days are spent on the civil design, management and construction supervision of subdivisions throughout the Central Queensland region, and there's quite a bit of travel involved between sites.

"Cardno has offices all over Australia and overseas and I am therefore involved in networking and knowledge-sharing with other offices to 'work smarter, not harder' and to optimise the services to Cardno delivers to clients," Chris said.

He said he aimed to strengthen his knowledge in engineering through continued exposure to a variety of challenging projects.

"I'm a big believer in putting my hand up for challenging projects, as these yield the greatest return in terms of experience."

"I believe in being a 'jack of all trades' and having a good working knowledge in a wide spectrum of fields."

"I'd like to move into more management over time, but also continue strengthening my engineering knowledge and experience. Longer-term, I'd like to start my own engineering consultancy to stretch myself even further."