Uniting Expertise, Innovation and the Spirit of Winning
Each year, Douglas Partners brings together our geotechnical engineers, geologists, hydrogeologists, environmental specialists and technical professionals from across 19 branches for our Annual Technical Seminar, an event that sits at the heart of our culture of technical excellence, collaboration and shared success.
Our team shared practical insights, innovative thinking and lessons learned from real-world projects that reinforce our role as trusted technical advisors.
A Win Winning Approach Built on Trust
The theme of this year’s seminar, “Win Winning” reflects the principles that underpin everything we do at Douglas Partners: trust, integrity and quality outcomes for our clients, communities and each other.
A win is never one-sided. True success comes from delivering reliable, data-driven advice that helps clients make informed decisions, while achieving sustainable, safe and efficient outcomes.
Recognising Excellence: The Don Douglas Award
A key highlight of the seminar was the presentation of the Don Douglas Award, recognising the best technical presentation of the event.
This year’s winner was Claire Corthier, Hydrogeologist for her brilliant presentation, “Turning failure into a win: Can probabilistic modelling and machine learning find the groundwater I missed?”. Drawing on a groundwater supply investigation, Claire not only shared reflections on how a conventional deterministic approach failed to identify viable bore locations, but she reframed the challenge by applying machine learning and probabilistic modelling to the same datasets. In recognition of her achievement, Claire will have the opportunity to attend an international industry conference of her choice.
Other outstanding presentations were also recognised:
- 1st Place: Craig Stemp, Rock Mechanics Engineer – “Lagging Behind on Purpose: A Win-Winning Approach to Timing and Collaboration Underground”..
- 2nd Place: Emma Maxwell, Geotechnical Engineer – ”Uncovering the past to predict the future”.
- 3rd Place: David Chong, Geotechnical Engineer – ”Hi, I need a few boreholes for a project”.
- Most Informative Presentation: Ben Anderson and Craig Trimbur, Environmental Principal Consultants – “Driving Business Development Excellence by Applying Franklin Covey’s 4 and 5 Habits to Win Work and Delight Clients”.
The winners and all presenters showcased Douglas Partners’ strong technical capability, innovative thinking and commitment to collaborative, client-focused outcomes across a diverse range of disciplines.
More Than Just Technical Learning
Beyond technical learning, the seminar reinforced the value of connection across the business. Bringing together colleagues from across Australia created the space for meaningful conversations, collaboration and the sharing of ideas, while also providing an opportunity to recognise and celebrate achievements of this year’s promotion recipients and long-standing team members who have contributed 10, 15, 25, 30 and 35 years of service to Douglas.
Read more about past Technical Seminars:
37th Annual Technical Seminar 2025
36th Annual Technical Seminar 2024