Rory O’Sullivan

Three lucky transport engineers are off to the United States to take part in a dedicated transport course after receiving scholarships from The Institute of Road Transport Engineers of New Zealand.

The Institute of Road Transport Engineers’ Scholarship Fund provides financial assistance to members to help further their knowledge and technical expertise in matters associated with road transport.

This year, IRTENZ offered sponsorship to attend a three-day course at University of Michigan on the Dynamics of Heavy-Duty Trucks.

IRTENZ president Chris Carr says the high calibre of applicants for this year’s scholarship saw the organisation award three scholarships for the course.

“We were pleasantly pleased with the quality of the applicants and we found it was difficult to choose a winner,” Carr says.

The full 2024 Scholarship Award was given to Rory O’Sullivan, who has been involved in the heavy vehicle industry since 2011 in multiple roles and is currently the general manager, manufacturing for Fruehauf NZ.

Financial assistance was also provided to Tim Stone from mechanical engineering consulting firm Randall & Associates Ltd, and Alan Kirk, a heavy vehicle certifier at bodybuilder and trailer manufacturer Gary Douglas Engineers.

Tim Stone                                                                                                           Alan Kirk

The University of Michigan course focuses on the special dynamic behaviour of truck systems by merging the fundamentals of vehicle dynamics and the details of truck components and properties.

“The University of Michigan is a longstanding transport research institute and is one of the leaders in the field,” Carr says.

“The course provides a solid background in vehicle dynamics and operations,” he says.

Carr says New Zealand’s transport industry is unlike any other, and having people in the industry learn as much as they can, will only benefit the sector.

“We’ve got a really strange country that we live in, when it comes to our transport design. Our vehicles are not really like anyone else’s around us – we’re quite different to Australia, to Asia, to the U.S. Very different to Europe except for some bits in Scandinavia,” he says.

“What we do is quite unique. And our topography is pretty unusual because everything’s sort of up and down and round and round. So we always need to be looking for the next thing that will improve our industry, and supporting the people who are going to come up with those things. We think that our scholarship winners will be able to contribute greatly to industry knowledge with what they gain from this course.”

Carr says the scholarship represents a very big step by IRTENZ to help the transport industry in the future.

“Like drivers, the engineers in our industry are getting older, and we are losing IP as they retire.

We need to do what we can to help provide education and training for the people that are in the industry, and hopefully provide some interest for people coming into it,’ he says.

“This is IRTENZ investing in the future of heavy transport.”