As everyone at Tonkin & Taylor knows, our colleague and friend Kevin Butler passed away on 21 December following a year-long fight with lung cancer. Right to the very end and lovingly supported by his partner Lee, Kevin was positive and intent on facing this new challenge. His spirit remained strong, but eventually his body lost the battle against this cruel disease.
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Pictured: Kevin Butler, 1953 - 2007. |
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It is fitting that we remember Kevin and his achievements, which should serve as an inspiration to all of us who strive to achieve excellence in our work and our lives. Kevin began his engineering career in the mid-1970s, working for Brunelli in Zambia while doing some early travel, and then worked for Waiotahi Contractors in New Zealand as a site engineer while completing his NZCE. Over this initial period he became a skilled draftsman and thereafter always had an eye for a decent engineering drawing. Kevin never forgot the hard lessons he learned in those early roles and applied the discipline of sound engineering relentlessly throughout his career.
Kevin went on to university, gaining direct entry into the 2nd professional year. After graduation he spent two years working in the United Kingdom and then joined T&T in 1984. At T&T, Kevin developed to become a specialist Civil Engineer, with a particular love of hydraulics. He worked on projects all over the world, and was a key Project Manager for many of the more significant civil engineering projects T&T has undertaken in the past 20 years. Anyone who has worked with Kevin knows that he routinely put in huge effort to meet unrelenting project demands. State Highway 20, Botany Town Centre, Redvale, the Whangarei RRP and just recently, the Westfield Albany Development, are attest to his skills and work ethic. Kevin was meticulous in his design approach, record keeping and project management – an example to all of us.
Kevin became a Shareholder and more recently a Director of T&T. He was a major contributor in the development of our project management systems and contract documents and he also spent periods as the manager of various project teams and as the Manager of the Civil Group.
Kevin was, however, an environmentalist and outdoorsman first and foremost, having grown up in Tokoroa where the lure of the trout and deer was ever present. He had a passion for the New Zealand bush, and in particular the bush and lakes of the central North Island. As a result he was better focussed on achieving work/life balance than many of us. Setting his annual calendar was the first job after every Christmas break and was centred on the Spirits Bay trip, Paradise duck season, duck shooting opening day, trout opening day, the roar, closing day etc, etc. In recent years Kevin was able to enjoy the outdoors from his bach (whare) at Lake Tarawera where all the attributes of one of his bush camps could be found – bush at the door, birds, log burner, fly rods on the wall and a clothes drying rack he made by hand from tea tree limbs.
We should all feel privileged to have spent time with him, both at work and at play. Everyone who attended one of the T&T Ski / Fish trips to Turangi will recall with affection the fun that we had and the enthusiasm Kevin had for those events. The last trip to his fishing retreat with a group of friends and work colleagues was very special and took place just a week before he died. As was said at Kevin’s funeral, T&T has lost a true stalwart, an engineer of the old school – one with a level of technical skill seldom seen, a Group Manager and Director of the firm and a fantastic colleague, mentor, teacher and friend.
Kevin will be greatly missed by all at T&T.
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