2011 Minister of Defence Award of Excellence: Higgins Contractors

06 December, 2011

Higgins Contractors were awarded The Minister of Defence Excellence Award on the 16 November 2011.

Higgins Contractors were nominated by the Royal New Zealand Air Force Project Takitini Management Office for the development of the Ohakea North East Quadrant and the construction of tarmac for the new helicopter fleet at RNZAF Base Ohakea.  The work included earthworks, pavement construction and underground infrastructure carried out over a 30 hectare site.

At the Awards ceremony Neal Garnett, Chairman of the Defence Industry Committee of New Zealand outlined the reason for awarding Higgins.  In his speech Neal said, "Higgins have ensured better wear characteristics within the aircraft manoeuvring area by adding polymer to the concrete, and their initiative to carry out subgrade lime stabilisation has increase the stability, impermeability, and load-bearing capacity of the subgrade in certain areas.  The new roller trialled by Higgins has provided the required density for the aircraft pavement at RNZAF Base Ohakea.

Neal Garnett went on to say "from the outset the workmanship, health and safety and environmental systems employed by Higgins were to the highest standards, and they ensured that all regulatory and compliance requirements were addressed.  Higgins endeavoured to make decisions that were best for the project and were proactive in putting RNZAF's requirements first.  They made several concessions to their construction programme to suit Takitini Project Management Office and the timing of other contracts.  The patience and willingness Higgins portrayed whilst working with other site contractors was highly commendable, as was their hands on site management.