Van Tang new Adelaide chief of top engineering firm GHD

IN THE still male-dominated world of engineering, Van Tang is challenging stereotypes.

IN the still male-dominated world of engineering, Van Tang cuts a surprisingly diminutive figure.

In fact, the new state leader at one of South Australia’s largest engineering firms challenges all sorts of engineering chief stereotypes.

Not only is she also a mother to two gorgeous young girls aged three and five, Ms Tang is also a former Vietnamese refugee who travelled in a boat to Australia when she was three years old.

After knowing Ms Tang for more than a decade, it is clear she is bold in tackling what the world sends her way.

When she took over leadership of 150 engineers, architects, scientists and support staff a few weeks back, Ms Tang relished being the first woman to win this South Australian role.

“Traditionally, this has been a male-dominated industry, I feel proud and privileged that I’m part of the changing face of this, and the industry is changing, now it’s about having a culture to support everyone to success at GHD,” she says.

Yet it’s a tough time to take on a top engineering company job.

Market opportunities have slowed in the state and GHD underwent its own restructuring some two years ago with its SA team shrinking from about 190 to its current number.

But Ms Tang is confident work is picking up.

“The industry is showing signs of recovery with an increasing number of opportunities in the market, although it could be 12 to 18 months before these projects move into construction,” she ways.

And her job was to ensure the company was ready for the “inevitable turnaround”.

“We are one of the few engineering and architecture consultants still taking on graduates,” she says.

“We took on seven new graduates this year and expect to take on a similar number next year.

“It will be vital to have young engineers and architects in place to support our clients’ projects rather than face a gap in skills.”

The company also acquired the Woodhead architectural firm brand three months ago as part of GHD’s plan to strengthen its design capability and create one of the state’s largest integrated practices.

It has since offered work to 16 former Woodhead architects and staff in Adelaide.

“The integrated team complements the engineering skills that GHD has in a number of areas, including transport and health, and enriches our existing architectural heritage in areas such as defence, education and public architecture,” Ms Tang said.

Her own expertise has focused on aviation since she joined the GHD team in 2006, a company that is part of a global network, with offices in every Australian state and territory.

Ms Tang has since worked on major defence jobs and projects at both Sydney and Melbourne airports.

Before that, she was an engineering consultant at Dare Sutton Clarke, working on transport projects including the Port River Expressway and North Terrace redevelopment.

She graduated from Adelaide University in 2000 with a double degree in engineering and arts.

Chinese philosophy and Spanish, were, apparently, a welcome distraction from the mathematics and science.

They were also part of Ms Tang exploring a fascinating cultural background that began with her birth in Vietnam.

When she arrived in Adelaide by boat with her father, Xuan, in the early 1980s, she arrived with memories of sharks near the boat and having to hide in cupboards from pirates.

Her mother was still in Vietnam and when her father moved to Broken Hill to work toward bringing the family back together, Ms Tang lived with “my Australian family” headed by parents Thelma and Ron Sudlow.

Later, when her Vietnamese family was reunited and bought a house nearby, Ms Tang’s unorthodox childhood saw her growing up between the two homes and living both her Australian and Chinese cultures.

“I’m very much the product of nature and nurture,” she says.

“In my Australian family I’m the youngest of three kids and in my Chinese family I’m the eldest of five.”

When she returned to Vietnam in 1996 to meet “about 200 million of my relatives” Ms Tang discovered yet another welcoming family network.

The visit also showed Ms Tang how environment can affect an individual’s potential, and it has made her even more firmly committed to GHD’s new diversity and inclusion group and policy that was introduced earlier this year.

“That policy isn’t just about gender equality, it’s about flexible work hours, cultural diversity, it’s about embracing that diversity in our business so we are capturing the best out of all of our people, they represent all those different thoughts for our clients,” Ms Tang says.