Chris Holliday
Outside of Young Pipeliners, I’m passionate about…
Not only do I love spending time in the mountains but I literally moved to the other side of the world to be nearer to the Rocky Mountains. A visit to mountains for me could be climbing a new peak, completing a previously failed scramble, hitting the ski hill or simply just wandering around downtown Canmore followed by a pint on the patio and soaking up the views.
Best advice you’ve ever received?
An excellent piece of advice I received from an event speaker is to accept every opportunity that is presented to you in your career, and then make the most of it. Even if that opportunity (or request from senior management…) seems to be the last thing you want to do, you may be surprised by how much you’ll learn and grow from it. I’ve been fortunate with the opportunities available to me so far, and they have allowed me to be able to visit and work in many parts of the world including the UK, Germany, Malaysia, Australia, the United States of America and now Canada. Finally, another excellent piece of advice I received from a mentor is to be as aware as possible of situations where you know enough about a subject to think you’re right, but not enough to know you’re wrong.
What new or rediscovered hobbies are you doing while practicing social distancing?
I have rediscovered my interest in researching my family history. This is far more challenging now that I live in on another continent. However, with more time spent indoors and with little else to distract me, I’ve been able to make some decent progress over the last few weeks.
How do you measure success in your career?
I tend to look at two measures of success, this can be based on my own personal achievements and also the accomplishments of mentees and successes of my team around me. Personal achievements can be measured in terms of challenges overcome, successful projects, customer relationships, published papers, developing expertise in different aspects of pipeline integrity or simply meeting a deadline within budget. Another important measure of success for me is seeing the professional development of mentees and junior staff come to fruition as they become respected well-rounded engineers or pipeliners.
From who or from where do you draw inspiration?
Throughout my career I have been lucky enough to have incredibly knowledgeable and experienced colleagues to learn from and act as my mentor. Observing how they deal with industry, technical & inter-company challenges has always been something to learn from. I also draw inspiration from the enthusiasm of my team around me; having good morale within the team is infectious and usually results in an exciting outcome.