JUBAIL PORT DEVELOPMENT, SAUDI ARABIA
On arriving in London in mid 1997 Alister secured a position with Sir William Halcrow & Partners, a well known and well respected consulting engineering company based in Hammersmith. For the next year he worked on the design process for the Jubail Harbour development in Saudi Arabia. They took a barren coastline and its immediate hinterland and developed a 14-berth container terminal, an oil terminal and an extensive associated industrial estate and then housing for all the people who would be based and work there. So the starting point was an engineer walking down onto the beach and driving in a peg, which became the benchmark for the entire development. This was a multi million pound project, involving thousands of engineers and construction crew, and continued for several years.
Alister learnt a lot about shipping but more profoundly started to get an appreciation for cultural issues, and the need to respect other people’s views, without necessarily understanding them. The housing requirements were somewhat strange to us, but for the Arabs they were normal.
Living in London was in itself a turning point. The boy from Canterbury going to West End Shows, Wimbledon and even going to the Royal Albert Hall for a function to recognize Halcrows being granted a Queens Export Award.
Alister left this job to spend three months travelling around Europe before heading back to NZ.