The estimator's journey: Building success at UGL
Antonio Siciliano, a Senior Civil Estimator with 15 years of experience at UGL, has embarked on a diverse journey, contributing his expertise to a range of projects in Australia. His specialisation lies in water projects, drawn to the intricate nature of civil work within this domain.
Tell us about your UGL journey?
“I started back in 2008 alongside John Kolenda and Glen Giles, my mentors at the time, as a civil estimator. I wanted a bit of a change from site experience, and this gave me the advantage as the role is to recreate a project in our minds and allocate costing towards it. I try to disseminate the project into very minute elements and build up a cost of any activity from that. My understanding from site experience helps towards seeing things all come together from a practical sense and it being performed safely. I have worked across many different sectors from new energy to infrastructure and transport. In the space of estimating it’s not something that can be taught, you really need to gain onsite experience. Unless you understand a project from a constructability point of view, there is no way you can perform the work that we do correctly because you need to build the whole project or elements of that project in your head, if you don’t understand how things come together you cannot estimate that task.”
What are some of the key projects you have worked on?
“My focus has mainly been on the water and wastewater business because of the technicality in terms of civil and structural work. It requires a complex estimating work in terms of structures, tanks, reservoirs, buildings, inground services, rising main pipe work, and intricate sorts of collections. I have been working on TasWater for the past three years. I have also worked on several power generation projects for eg, Kwinana and Inpex, Shoalhaven Wastewater and Sewerfix projects under the Sydney Water Program of Works and the recently completed Bryn Estyn Water Treatment Plant Upgrade for the Taswater Capital Delivery Office Alliance. Quite a variety of different areas.”
What makes UGL a great place to work?
“We have some great people and leaders in the business which is essentially the foundation as to why I am still here. We get recognised for what we do which is important and the camaraderie between fellow work colleagues is great.”
