20 years ago — October 1999:
• RMBF chief executive officer Trevor Allsebrook suddenly resigned his position just two days before he was due to speak at the House of the Year awards dinner.
He left the Federation after more than nine years at the helm, during which he saw it through a period of significant growth and development.
He said while there had been differences between him and the Federation’s board, “the parting has been by mutual agreement”, and he remained supportive of the aims and directions of the organisation.
In an open letter to Building Today, Mr Allsebrook said Federation staff had slowly and methodically implemented changes that, unfortunately, took some people out of their comfort zone.
“We had to leave behind some who refused to change whilst we regrettably stood on a few toes too. You do not achieve the radical changes [of centralisation] we implemented without some casualties,” he said.
15 years ago — October 2004:
• A foundation stone was unveiled to mark the start of the Auckland War Memorial Museum’s most ambitious construction project since its beginnings in 1929.
Hawkins Construction began the Grand Atrium project in December 2003, and was working towards an expected completion date of September 2006.
The $55 million project increased the museum’s floor space by 60%, and enabled up to five million objects held in temporary warehouse storage to be brought back on site.
10 years ago — October 2009:
• Starting from their next session with their BCITO training advisor, apprentices completing the National Certificate in Carpentry were to be assessed on their progress through the qualification by their training advisor, rather than by their employer, supervisor or company assessor.
BCITO chief executive Ruma Karaitiana said the change to the model was designed to streamline the assessment of the qualification, and to reduce time spent by employers on paperwork.
“With almost 4000 employers assessing apprentices throughout the country, the old assessment model made it difficult for us to achieve consistency across the board,” Mr Karaitiana said
5 years ago — October 2014:
• New Zealanders were able to find out more about the environmental impact of various building products following the launch of a new programme that provided Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
The Australasian Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) Programme was set up so that construction product manufacturers in New Zealand and Australia could develop EPDs, providing credible, science-based information about the environmental performance of their products.
Its launch in New Zealand was supported by the BRANZ Building Research Levy.
