What do you do at NASH Maritime (role, specialism etc)?
I’m an Associate Director and lead the Offshore Development pillar, providing navigation risk support to those clients looking to operate or develop in the coastal or offshore marine environment. The type of organisations we support include offshore developers, such as wind, wave and tide, environmental consultancies, and governments.
A principal part of my role is understanding the markets we work within, prospecting and client liaison, developing innovative solutions to project challenges, along with managing a team of specialists.
What drew you to working in this area?
It’s a combination of things. During my geography undergraduate degree, I became interested in spatial analysis and taking a strategic, bigger picture view of issues. I’ve also sailed all my life, racing dinghies and qualifying as a Yachtmaster. This gave me a fascination with the maritime environment and the risks associated with navigating the UK coast.
I saw a role advertised at a maritime consultancy, applied, got it and never looked back. I’ve been working in maritime consultancy for 15 years!
I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to take a career break during this time to study for a PhD in maritime risk assessment, taking time to develop my technical skills and publish academic papers in my key areas of interest.
What kind of studies are you currently involved in?
Most recently I’ve completed a challenging Examination phase of the UK’s Round 4 Irish Sea offshore wind farms, Mona and Morgan. I have worked on these projects with NASH Maritime for six years from pre-bidding site selection support in 2019 through the Navigation Risk Assessments and into Examination.
I’ve also recently been involved in a number of other UK and Irish offshore wind farms, focusing on the impact on Search and Rescue (SAR) and layout design. Providing a risk-based justification for overcoming site specific challenges constraining layouts whilst ensuring safe and efficient access for SAR assets.
I also oversee much of our technical quantitative risk modelling capability. This includes, developing a marine traffic risk model for a proposed development in Hong Kong waters to ensure risks of collision, allision and grounding are properly assessed and mitigated in the scheme’s design.
What’s your favourite thing about the work you do?
Here at NASH Maritime we are working on complex projects occurring in challenging navigation areas. We are tasked to find practical solutions that ensure safe co-existence of maritime infrastructure, operations and other users.
I relish the problem-solving element of my role. Every project is unique and presents a new challenge and range of impacts, requiring adaptability to consider new approaches to answering each specific question.
How does the work you do support NASH Maritime’s vision of a safe and sustainable marine environment?
There is a critical need to decarbonise the economy using offshore renewables and put in place the necessary infrastructure, such as interconnectors. However, if you build anything at sea, there’s inherently an increased risk to the safety of navigation.
We believe that through proper risk assessment and implementing appropriate management or mitigation, safe co-existence is possible.
What do you like best about working here?
It’s an environment of like-minded people who thrive on tackling big, complicated infrastructure projects.
What phrase or word sums up NASH Maritime for you?
Pioneers of an evidence-based approach to navigational risk assessment.