Ian graduated with Honours from Adelaide University in 1963 with a Bachelor’s Degree of Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering. Ian said, “After a number of jobs I was in a management position in Darwin when Cyclone Tracy destroyed the city. Subsequently my family and I found ourselves in Adelaide for a little while before moving to Canberra, where I did a postgraduate course in Administration at what was then the Canberra College of Advanced Education.

“In 1975, when I was asked by my company to move to Sydney, Max Kimber, a fellow graduate from Adelaide University, suggested that I apply for a job as the Planning Engineer with The Pipeline Authority (TPA) on the Moomba to Sydney Pipeline. Within a year I was Operations Manager and experiencing much of the growth period of TPA.

“The Authority had started with the procedures and practices being written by people like Ken Bilston, Ted Davis and Max Kimber. Because there was no such thing as transmission pipeline regulations at that stage we made it up as we went along and used many procedures and practices from overseas.

“Later, when we put in compressor stations and built laterals, my involvement was to ensure that we built pipelines that we could operate. I would ensure that we had operations input into the design. I well remember a visit to Canada in 1984 when the Operations Manager for Alberta Gas Trunklines said to me, ‘Ian, our engineering has made it an absolute nightmare for maintenance, for spare parts, for operation.’ I was determined to ensure that this didn’t happen on our pipelines; it’s just so important.”

East Australian Pipelines Ltd (EAPL) then took over TPA and Ian continued as Operations Manager. Many of the senior staff left. Norm Bakker stayed and Ian continued as Operations Manager. Jim McDonald came down from Darwin as he was involved in the acquisition, and the Operations Team was vitally important to him.

“And then I think it was June 1996, when Jim in his casual way said to me, ‘How would you like to go to New Zealand?’ Come October and Jim confirmed it was on so I moved my family to New Zealand for three years which was a great experience. I enjoyed it very much; I ran the transmission division at Natural Gas Corporation (NGC). I had a great time as it is a great country and we were able to restructure the NGC business and make it much more efficient.

“I came back to Australia and within a few months the Australian Pipeline Trust (APT) was formed. I became the initial General Manager Technical, being one of the first six people employed by APT.

“While that was happening, I took over chairmanship of AS 2885 part 3. Our committee put together and published part 3 in 25 months, which was extremely fast. That’s a credit to the people who worked with me to get that done and we haven’t had many people complain about it! We’ve started a review of part 3 but I’m not going to be involved this time because I’m over 67 and some younger people should drive it through.

“When I retired from APT, people started to call and I’ve been asked to help on a consulting basis with all sorts of organisations like GasNet, the South Australian Government, Caltex and NT Gas. I recently finished some work with GasNet and now I’m working with Stephen Dykes on the Bonaparte Pipeline in the Northern Territory. I became part-time Technical Manager for the APIA, assisting the secretariat with technical matters and acting as secretary to the Research and Standards Committee.

“I also did some training for Duke, GasNet, and Enertrade. Training was another thing; in my last period of time with APT, we held the APIA training seminars on AS 2885 part 3 all over Australia and New Zealand. We put about five hundred people through the training on AS 2885 part 3. I’m pretty pleased that, by and large, at least the major companies are using AS 2885 properly and they are finding out it actually works.

“There are many other things that I became involved in; I was a member of the American Gas Association Pipelines and Research Corrosion sub-committee where I was introduced to world experts that we were able to bring to Australia to help us. I was the Round Table Chairman of the Gas Turbine Users Association for about five or six years. I coordinated a world-wide user group for the Dresser Rand DR 990 turbine for six years. I am a member of Standards Australia Gas Standards Sector Board.”

Ian finished by saying, “If you want to talk about what I think about the pipeline industry and where it’s going I would say most importantly you have to have a passion for it. As Jim McDonald said to me once, ‘You know, there is only one thing wrong with you, Haddow – you care’ and I think that’s what we have to try and engender in some of these younger people, the need to care. Taking operations and maintenance back into the ownership of the asset is going to help people care. The owner feels a greater responsibility than that of a contractor. Therefore you have to be keen, you have to be enthusiastic and you have to care. And I think that the task going forward is to get people to care. I think it is so important.”

During this interview Ian put a particularly strong emphasis on the joy and satisfaction he has received in helping the younger people to enter and succeed in the pipeline industry.