Many club members would be well acquainted with last Monday night’s guest speaker, Yvonne Slater, through her parents Mal and Deb. Growing up, Yvonne often attended club events with them, although confessed her last one was more than 10 years ago before she left Torquay to study, travel and pursue a career in managing construction projects.
The latter, which formed the focus of her presentation, may have surprised those who knew Yvonne back then as a teenager in high school. Returning as an adult with almost 10 years work experience under her belt, her transition into a confident, engaging and passionate guest speaker was both impressive and entertaining.
Yvonne spoke about her career as a woman working in construction, traditionally a male-dominated domain. Attracted by the idea of building something from nothing, she studied architecture and construction at university, scoring her first job before graduating and working on the refurbishment of Melbourne’s five-star Crown Towers hotel.
Her next project involved refitting Crown Casino’s gaming area. Yvonne admitted she enjoyed working for a company with the capability, at that time, to spend whatever it took to get the job finished to the company's skyhigh standards. She cited ordering hand-crafted tiles direct from Italy as an example.
This extravagant approach did not, however, apply to her next projects – RMIT’s Design Hub and the William Barak building – but the challenges involved proved equally tempting and ultimately rewarding. After the blood, sweat and tears associated with rendering Barak’s face in glass tiles to make up one side of the new building, the final unveiling made everything worth it.
Yvonne’s most recent two projects involve high rise buildings, her ultimate career objective. She is currently project managing the entire fit-out of a 50+ storey building designed with a leaning tower and located in Melbourne’s docklands. Club members travelling to Melbourne will be able to keep tabs on its progress by keeping an eye out for the huge ProBuild cranes, which were erected only in the last week or so.
It was obvious during Yvonne’s presentation that she loves her work despite the long hours and the many demands, including those associated with being a woman in a man’s world. Dad and Mum are no doubt very proud of all she’s achieved so far (although Dad still apparently believes he knows best when it comes to building things).
