The Institution of Engineering and Technology has revealed the shortlists for its annual Apprentice of the Year, Technician of the Year and Armed Forces Technician of the Year Awards, which recognise individuals who have made exceptional engineering contributions to their profession or operational area.

The shortlists highlight achievements across a wide spectrum of engineering excellence, ranging from optronics, wind farm grid connection and microscope development to improving the RAF’s communications network and supporting the UK response of the Ebola crisis.

The winners of all three awards will be announced at the IET Achievement Awards ceremony in London on Wednesday, November 16 and they will each receive a prize consisting of a trophy, certificate, £1,000 cash and two year’ free IET membership.

The Apprentice Award finalists are:

• Josh Barber, who works for ABB Ltd. as an Apprentice Circuit Engineer. He made a major contribution to a client’s wind farm grid connection by improving safety and efficiency while reducing both cost and installation time.
• Marc Bartholomew, a Technical Apprentice at Leonardo, a global high-tech electronic engineering company, who recently won an internal award for the oil surveys he conducted in Malaysia.
• Joe Carter, a third year applications apprentice at Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH, who developed a microscope prototype and wrote his own firmware for a development project, saving the company £100k – £150k per year.

The Technician Award finalists are:

• Sam Moloney EngTech TMIET is a Systems Technician at Leonardo, where he is developing a sophisticated design for electronic vehicle architecture. He is also site expert for a simulation tool which is used to demonstrate a project’s capacity.
• Andrew Nicholson EngTech TMIET, a Senior Technician at Arcadis Consulting Ltd, whose knowledge of Building Information Modelling (BIM) techniques has changed the way Arcadis operates and collaborates with its clients.
• Sam O’Sullivan EngTech MICE, a technician at Pell Frischmann Consultants in Wakefield whose work has been critical for the progress of the Rainford Junction Bridge Project in St Helens.
• Ozair Said EngTech TMIET, an Engineering Technician at WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff who is leading the Telecommunications team’s effort in Building Information Modelling (BIM) in order to enable the collaboration between key international technology suppliers and manufacturers to produce a custom Telecommunications Systems BIM library.

The Armed Forces Technician Award finalists are:

• Corporal Andrew Gittins, who helped the RAF use its existing communications hardware in new ways, thereby improving information services to overseas operations while maintaining the high level of cyber protection and security required by the MOD.
• Staff Sergeant Kurt Knight, who was deployed to Sierra Leone as a member of the Specialist Team Royal Engineers to support the Ebola crisis, where he was the lead electrical engineer for the design and construction of two treatment centres.
• Staff Sergeant Nicholas Statham who is responsible for designing and project-managing the construction of mission-critical fuel storage facilities and fuel installations in both Cyprus and the UK.

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