Deciding on what college course to do after my leaving cert was a very important step, I choose Engineering in Trinity College Dublin and I specialsed in Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering from the third year of that course.

My guidance counsellor in school was a great help to me in finding out the information on various courses that were our there. Also other members of my family have studied engineering.

The position was advertised on the company notice board, shorthly after applying for the job I attended a first round interview and then a second round interview.

A week later I was offered the job.

A typical day would start with travelling to a quarry & meeting with the quarry manager.

You could spend half the day outside around the quarry carrying out an inspection/audit, the second half of the day could be spent on paper work which might include analysising environmental monitoring results and checking for compliance to planning conditions imposed on the site.

To implement the Environmental Management System & carry out internal audits at our quarries.

This would include ensuring that each location is complying with their various planning conditions and licences.

The main challenges can be organising your day, you might not get back to that quarry for number of weeks so it is important to address all issues on that one day.

Working in a number of different quarry's, no day is the same.

My car is my office!

In my job I work with managers and supervisors who are working in production which can be hectic, and as I have worked as a supervisor in a production factory, I understand their responsibilities and what is practical for them.

The most relelvant subjects to my college course  which I choose for my leaving certificate were physics & chemistry.

I also had honours maths which was essential along with one science subject for entry into my college course.

These three subjects have been a useful back up throughout my career so far.

I think I choose well,  the one thing I would change about my choices would be to do technical drawing.

After completing my Leaving Certificate,  I then studied Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering in Trinity College,  which is a 4 year honors degree course.

I completed the Institute of Quarrying's 'Quarry Management' course in Doncaster, this course was completed in one year as some subjects were exempt as they were covered in my engineering degree.

In my present role as Environmental Officer the environmental section of my degree course has been a good background to start from.

Also the environmantal module of the Qaurrying course was very relevant to my job and has been a source of reference to me.

In my previous roles in CRH I have found that the knowledge of building materials from my college course was a distinct advantage as a graduate.

Organising the Concrete Society Annual Awards Ceremony as part of my duties as Honorary secretary of the Society.

More recently in my current role in achieving company wide accreditation of the ISO 14001,  an Environmental Managment System.

Organised and hard working

I have worked in two CRH companies since graduating and progession opportunities are great.  Working overseas can also be an option with the company

You should possibly consider studying environmental science or environmental engineering in third level.

You would also need to consider if you would like do quite a bit of driving during your day and to be able to oragnise your own work plans as both these things are important.

Interpersonal skills are very important in this job as you are interacting with quarry managers, Local Authority's & other company employees all the time.

all types

Godfather

people being late

Picese

Since graduating I have completed a Company Graduate Development Program and travelled to the UK to attended exams for a Quarry Managment course.

This year I hope to complete an environmental noise monitoring course.

Work in an environmental monitoring laboratory or working in a quarry or related environment in any position.