After years of lockdowns, restrictions, and confusion, we are so relieved to have finally returned to a sense of normality again, allowing our team to come back into the office, and truly work collaboratively to inspire better living in all of our employee’s and client’s lives.
Throughout the year, we’ve been able to return to business as usual, but we haven’t just stopped at that. We’ve taken on exciting and different projects, expanded our client services, celebrated registrations & a new in-house training program, all to ensure we can act as leaders in the industry, and provide the best opportunities for our clients and employees alike.
To help us to celebrate our hard work, we’re recognising our developments, milestones, and achievements from the year that was 2022.
We embarked on new journeys and touched the lives of many clients
A total of 223 individual permit applications were received, resulting in 184 permits issued so far, and 70 certification applications for subdivisions were received.
Additionally, 160 Statements of Compliance were issued, which is on average more than three every week! This helped to lead to the creation of 723 individual lots. In addition to these quantifiable achievements, we’re proud of how we’ve diversified our work this year, taking on new and interesting projects, including working on a variety of schools, and Mount Bulla’s zipline project, which will be the longest zipline in the Southern Hemisphere once approved!
Our team has worked hard to make this happen, and we take much pride in our team for delivering such amazing results.
Providing support to our communities
The philosophy in our workplace is to give back, not just to our staff who put in so much work, but to the community too. That’s why in 2022 we have provided support to several clubs, including Point Leo Surf Life Saving Club, Mount Evelyn Football/Netball Club, Maroondah Adult Riding Club and Flemington Bowling Club, to support our local communities. We have also supported charities such as Property Industry Foundation which helps to build homes for homeless youth and provide them with support to rebuild their lives, Cancer Council Victoria which works to research and prevent cancer in Victoria, and Movember which looks to raise awareness of men’s health issues such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s suicide.
We’ve expanded our services
In 2022, we were incredibly excited to announce our new department, MM Structural. The addition to our in-house services ensures we can efficiently resolve day-to-day issues and streamline our project delivery for our clients. From residential projects to commercial and industrial projects, our knowledgeable structural engineering team works across projects of varying scales and types. This service offers a range of abilities and functionalities, which can be found on our Structural Engineering Service page.
We also added to our Land Surveying services and now provide 3D Scanning services. This utilises a 3D Laser Scanner to combine imagery with laser technology in order to create a colour point cloud that provides an accurate and complete representation of existing conditions. To get more information about 3D Scanning or find out how it may be used in your next project, see our 3D Scanning Service page.
We’ve also implemented a Project Delivery team into our offices, in which the team assists in running several projects at various stages of completion, and assist in identifying the scope of projects. This has helped us to better address our client’s needs in a cohesive and comprehensive way, maintaining a streamlined process while working with high levels of work volume!
We’ve opened new doors and welcomed in new people
It’s been a pleasure to add a new office to our listings in Yarrawonga, and add our first employee there, Jeremy Orme. It’s been great to hear how things are going there, and there are many new and exciting things to look out for coming from that office in the New Year!
In 2022, we also hired 22 new staff to help us inspire better living.
Also part of the family, we have said hello to 3 new babies, celebrated 2 engagements, added 2 new marital partners to the family, and are looking forward to adding another baby expected next year!
We kept up with industry changes and updates
This year, we have once again paid close attention to the land development industry, and have paid close to upcoming trends, reporting on them through our blog, The Chalk. Over the year, our blog provided insight to The Windfall Gains Tax, and how it will affect landowners and developers; reported on how the pandemic has affected property industry trends, and where we expect these trends to continue; explained Greening the Greyfields as a way to address urban sprawl; worked to explain The Professional Registration of Engineers Act and how it will shape the industry; explored how future engineers are vital in taking on the climate challenge, and thus it is important to make changes happen in the classroom; investigated the engineer shortage in Australia and uncovered why there’s hope on the horizon; we covered the Victorian water and sewerage authorities new fee proposals, and encouraged people to get involved with the decision making for this; and finally, we set the WSUD process straight, providing guidance for smaller subdivisions.
Our Director, Simon Merrigan, even presented to the Association of Consulting Surveyors seminar in March. During the seminar, titled Rising To The Challenge, Simon presented information regarding Urban and town planning, and navigating VCAT, providing useful information to all attendees.
Partnered with Swinburne University to shape the future generation of engineers
Our General Manager of Operations at Millar Merrigan, Sehon Pellew, has worked with Swinburne University of Technology on their Water Engineering unit. He has done so as a key guest-lecturer for the subject, helping to embed climate-conscious thinking into the next generation of engineers.
The course content includes aspects of sustainable urban water management issues, greywater recycling, and water demand estimation amongst population growth models, among other things. We know we have a responsibility in our company to use our position for good, which is why we are so thrilled that Sehon from our leadership team has worked so hard to advise on the students’ proposals in this subject.
We’ve celebrated our team’s service
Our success at Millar Merrigan comes down to our team, and we love to be able to recognise their successes and commitment.
This year we celebrated many work anniversaries, including 14 five-year milestones, two ten-year milestones and four fifteen-year milestones.
A special mention to our fifteen-year milestones – Dan Terjesen, Shaun Crossett, Ingrid Sukkel, and Chris Small – for their long service to the Millar Merrigan family.
Pictured above left to right: Shaun Crossett, Ingrid Sukkel, Chris Small; our 15 year milestone services. Not pictured: Dan Terjesen.
Whether our employees are joining for the first time, coming back, staying on board, or leaving, they will always be a part of the Millar Merrigan family.
We’ve celebrated registrations and training
We had 4 of our engineers become registered under The Professional Registration of Engineers Act, and would like to celebrate Jake Gilbert in becoming a Registered Landscape Architect with AILA after 7 years of dedication and hard work!
We also introduced our first ever entirely in-house leadership development program in February, to develop the skills of our managers and leaders, to ensure we are always supporting our team to Inspire Better Living. The program involved innovating department plans and goals, changing these to complement each other and let Millar Merrigan shine. Once these were brought to life, skills were developed in leading through and generating curiosity for change. Constructive feedback from within teams was received throughout the process, to help our leaders learn and grow. With such a great success, we are looking forward to running the program again in 2023!
Thank You
As we wrap up for the year, we want to take this moment to thank everyone who has been involved with Millar Merrigan this year, on an employee, client, or industry connection level. Thank you for making this year a memorable one, and helping us with our success. We are delighted to be able to reflect on the communities we have been able to create and nurture, and take time to appreciate the trust our customers put in us time and time again.
We wish all our readers a very happy holiday period, and we can’t wait to explore new horizons with you in the coming year, where we will continue with our client-focused approach!
Would you like to work for Millar Merrigan or become a partner in the coming New Year? Get in touch!
