30 January 2020

Angela Lynch had her sights firmly set on working on a large infrastructure project when she enrolled in a Certificate IV in Project Management Practice with TAFE Digital.

Steve Pascall, Project Director at Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW), said “It’s great to see how Angela applied the vocational experience she gained at TAFE to help maximise return on investment for this massive infrastructure project.”

“This transformative project is generating 10,000 direct and indirect jobs for NSW across a wide variety of disciplines who cohesively collaborate, plan and work towards delivering an end result we can all be proud of.”

Ms Lynch said, “When deciding to embark on further studies, I was also in the process of moving home from Alstonville to Gymea Bay, and needed the flexibility to study while on the hop and applying for roles to work on this high profile project in Sydney,” she said.

This strategy certainly paid dividends for Ms Lynch when she secured work at Alstom Transport Australia to work in the Sydney Light Rail project team.

The new CBD and South East Light Rail network consists of 19 stops, a tunnel section and a bridge that crosses over the Eastern Distributor. This includes system facilities to manage the Light Rail operations, an Operational Control Centre, a Stabling Yard in Randwick, a Maintenance Facility in Lilyfield and associated HV & LV Power Supply Substations and other buildings along the line.  The project has involved substantial critical service relocations and extensive urban regeneration. Line 2 between Randwick and Circular Quay commenced passenger services in December 2019. Line 3 from Kingsford via Kensington will open in March 2020.

“Prior to my project management studies, I had worked on two large infrastructure and transformation projects at Sydney Trains and have formal qualifications in frontline management, as well as having completed a Diploma of Business Administration,” said Ms Lynch.

“The infrastructure industry is becoming increasingly competitive these days, so having these formal qualifications under my belt gave me that extra edge to get through the initial application process.”

Ms Lynch supported Alstom’s Sydney Light Rail project director and core management team. 

“My studies helped me better understand and implement project management principals and terminology, enabling me to quickly become productive,” she said.

“Working so closely with the project director gave me the opportunity to apply recognised project management processes, scope and time management techniques, with a key focus around stakeholder management.”

Working with the planning team has also been a tremendous part of Ms Lynch’s learning curve.

“I’ve been mentored on task and resource scheduling to create dashboards, which facilitate communication of complex data,” she said.  “Alstom is a French multinational organisation - it’s exciting being an integral part of such a large, diverse team across multiple international sites.”

Round the clock support offered by TAFE Digital was particularly appealing to Ms Lynch, with a big plus being that she could access resources in the online library.

“Having the ability to study at my own pace, where and when I wanted to, helped me enormously,” she said.  “When I needed clarification on assignments and assessments, teachers responded to emails the same day with salient advice.”

Visit www.tafensw.edu.au/digital to explore the range of online courses available for enrolment in 2020.

Media contact: Bonny Gunn, TAFE Digital Media and Communications Business Partner.  M: 0417 134 048.