Crookstown’s Jim Leahy, chair of Engineers Ireland Cork Region Committee, will welcome Engineers Ireland president, Laura Burke, to the annual conferring of titles and awards at a ceremony which will take place on April 28 at the Rochestown Park hotel. 

Legacy of this engineering generation

Burke will deliver her presidential address and the overall question in her address is to ask what will be the legacy of this engineering generation – what are the lighthouses of the 21st century?

Like a lighthouse, what beacon of hope can engineers give? Burke said: “Part of what makes a great engineer is imagination and innovation. People often think of engineers in a more traditional way and while there are lots of opportunities in those areas, there are also lots of opportunities in new areas. Anywhere there is a difficult problem to address you will find engineers at the centre of it. And when you consider some of the challenges faced by society, we need engineers now more than ever.”

Jim Leahy.

Leahy is looking forward to the event when he will look back on a busy and successful year in office where, to date, he has hosted CPD series events and lectures on topics ranging from 'What Engineers should know about Electric Vehicle Batteries'; and 'Sustainability in Practice'; to 'Irish Rail Upgrade Works in the Cork region'.

“This is a major event in our annual calendar. Not only do we have the opportunity to honour some of our fellow professionals, but we also provide a means of awarding awards to third level students based in the Cork area. And it is a great opportunity to meet with our president, Laura Burke,” he said.

Hand over to incoming chair, Denise McCarthy

Jim Leahy will complete a successful year at the AGM of Cork Region Engineers Ireland Cork Region Committee on Tuesday, May 6, and hand over to the incoming chair, Denise McCarthy. 

"I'm proud to say I had a tremendous year as chair of the Cork Region. My year involved working with an excellent committee which was comprised of those with many years’ experience in organising the year's activities and also with some great new people who brought good energy to our group.

"Our main committee and our subcommittees (which were involved in organising CPD events and our annual dinner) performed excellently in achieving the goals we set out for the year.

"I think we effectively managed to showcase engineering excellence in the Cork area, bringing CPD events and information sessions relevant to our locality and beyond to an audience both inside and outside our county.

"We managed to host and co-host, with other engineering sectors and divisions, a number of events comprising of lectures and site visits, including our series on sustainability; lectures on EV batteries; contract awareness; Irish Rail projects; computing applications in BikeShare, the Dursey Island cable car refurbishment; the Killaloe bypass; and the GNI Female Engineer Development Programme.

" I particularly enjoyed the historical elements of some of our talks such as the history of rail development in the Cork area, the history of the Dursey Island cable car and the story of the original crossing of the Shannon at Killaloe.

"I managed to have two sites visit to the NMRI and NMCI Marine Institutes in Ringaskiddy which are fabulous institutions and are deeply embedded in engineering that is happening now and will be happening in the future in the Cork harbour area and off the coast of Cork, never mind the influence these institutions have worldwide. 

"We had a stand at the STEM SW exhibition in the City Hall and we partook in in Engineers Week events. Stellar work was also done by the Cork Region’s Young Engineers Society, a society which the main committee continues to support, and indeed learns from, as the enthusiasm of these individuals is infectious.

Personally, I enjoyed my year representing the Cork Region on the Engineers Ireland Council which oversees the overall organisation and I also took great pride in visiting other regions across Ireland where I could proudly wear the chain of office of the region with my own name etched on the latest bar of the chain.

"Meeting and working with officers from other regions and other sectors further increased the contributions I could make to my own region when we compared actions and lessons learnt.

"A major part of my year in office was focused on encouraging young people to consider engineering as a profession and also in assisting members in their pursuit of professional titles within the organisation.

"The culmination of my efforts to assist in achieving professional titles such as chartership is our annual conferring at which the president of our organisation gives a presidential address and titles are conferred. We also use this event  to present awards to engineering students in Cork third level colleges for achievements in their engineering pursuits.

'High point of career'

"I'm proud to say that I applied the same efforts to myself and have just recently been transferred to Fellow (CEng FIEI) of Engineers Ireland. This is a high point of my career and it reflects what I hope has been a reasonably decent contribution to the engineering profession and to which I hope I will continue to contribute.

"Our big social event of the year, held in February is our annual dinner. This was a major success again this year particularly as we were delighted to have the presence of An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, as guest of honour to this annual black tie event which brought over 300 engineering professionals together at the Maryborough Hotel in Cork.

"Other high-profile guests on the evening include Laura Burke, president of Engineers Ireland, Cllr Patrick Donovan, deputy mayor of Co Cork and Cllr Honore Karnegni, deputy lord mayor of Cork. It so happened that my own 60th birthday party was held on the evening following our annual dinner. That was an entirely different affair, for more reasons than just the absence of an taoiseach.

"I have found volunteering in this organisation to be very rewarding be it as committee member or as an officer. “At one function I was discussing this with the head of one of our third level institutions and we came to the conclusion but it's not ‘giving back’, although it can be, but it's more about 'taking one's turn'."