PEOPLE that care - Sitzler · 2020. 1. 24. · Steve Margetic, that accolade is particularly meaningful to him and his team, because it was in recognition of the whole busi-ness,

Sitzler is among Australia’s longest standing and most highly regarded construction companies. For over 40 years, they

have been delivering quality projects in a progressively safer, more sustainable, and more socially conscious manner.

PEOPLEthat care

That

Sitzler is among Australia’s lon-gest standing and most highly regarded construction com-panies. For over 40 years, they have been delivering quality projects in a progressively saf-er, more sustainable, and more socially conscious manner. They have evolved from a local Northern Territory business op-erating in the remotest parts of the country, to a national pro-fessional and trusted industry specialist – with over 250 proj-ects built throughout the North-ern Territory, So¬uth Australia, and Western Australia, and with over 40 prestigious industry awards to testify to their excel-lence.

Most recently, the company was honoured at the National

Business Leadership Awards, hosted by Master Builders Aus-tralia. Those awards recognise and celebrate successful build-ing and construction business-es that harness best practice and innovation, exemplify eth-ical commercial conduct, and make positive contributions to their communities. In 2019, they named Sitzler ‘Large Civ-il Construction Business of the Year.’

According to Managing Director Steve Margetic, that accolade is particularly meaningful to him and his team, because it was in recognition of the whole busi-ness, not just a specific project.

“Our business is made up of a lot of people, not just project

“Our business is made up of a lot of people, not just project staff, and they are all essential to maintaining our reputa-tion.”

DECEMBER 2019

staff, and they are all essential to maintaining our reputation,” he said, upon accepting the award.

“Our reputation is everything,” he added, in an interview off-stage. “The clients we have in-variably use us based on our reputation. We’ve worked really hard to maintain that, to treat people the right way, and to be known as a company that peo-ple actually want to deal with. To be recognised in this envi-ronment for that – for the work we do and how we present our business – is absolutely thrill-ing.”

Denita Wawn, CEO of Mas-ter Builders Australia, said the award was a reflection of Sit-

zler’s “outstanding capacity and capability” to deliver large projects that meet their client’s needs while also achieving en-vironmental and social out-comes. She added that Sitzler is an “iconic name in the con-struction industry across Aus-tralia’s north,” and they have built “a national presence as a preferred contractor.”

Denita went on to praise the company’s recent history of suc-cessfully delivering civil projects – over $300 million worth in the last five years alone – and the wide range of civil disciplines they cover – including bulk earthworks, road construction, bridgeworks and piling, major flood mitigation projects and construction of subdivisions.

“Sitzler followed up their success on that initial project with continued work at the hospital over the past 20 years.”

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DECEMBER 2019

She also commended their heavy investment in new plant and equipment, which has sig-nificantly increased their abili-ty to provide civil solutions for their clients.

“A fully-equipped earthmov-ing fleet and a team of highly experienced multi-skilled key personnel has enabled Sitzler to self-perform the majority of civil work in the past five years,” she said.

“Sitzler’s ongoing success in the delivery of complex and chal-

lenging projects in remote and isolated locations has demon-strated their ability to over-come the unique challenges faced in such conditions whilst maintaining a record of on-time completion,” she added.Finally, Denita applauded the company for the opportunities created through the work they have done within Indigenous communities.“Importantly for a business de-livering major projects in Aus-tralia’s north, Sitzler has main-tained their commitment to respectfully engage with local

Indigenous communities at all levels across their projects. This has allowed Sitzler to create sig-nificant employment opportu-nities and hands on experience for local Indigenous people.”

Civil construction is a growing sector for Sitzler – the civil di-vision has tripled in size since forming in 2009, and is staffed by a team of highly experienced supervisors and leading hands – but it is far from all they have to offer. The company’s work is varied and diverse. They are active and well-regarded in the defence, space innovation, com-munity and civic, commercial, and industrial building sectors, among others.

Recently, they have been rec-ognised for their work in the healthcare space in particular. At the 2019 Master Builders NT Excellence in Building and Con-struction Awards, for example, Sitzler won the categories for

‘Health Facility’ and ‘Commercial Construction $5 million to $10 million.’

Both awards were in recogni-tion of the company’s work in the Royal Darwin Hospital, on the PET and Second CT Scanner Facilities. Those facilities offer additional cancer care services for the patients of the hospital, and they are the first of their kind for the Northern Territory. The project scope comprised of demolition, concrete ground slab and suspended slab, block-work internal partitions, glazing, internal fit out, medical gasses, and new mechanical plant.

Prior to being awarded that project, Sitzler had completed a

Proactive and pragmatic

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DECEMBER 2019

multi-million dollar upgrade of the same hospital’s paediatric ward and negative pressure isolation rooms.

The first stage of that refurbish-ment – itself valued at almost $16 million – included more single rooms, a dedicated ad-olescent lounge, redesigned floor space to create a more child-friendly layout, a day-stay treatment area, a play therapy space, respite lounge for par-ents, and a school room.

The second and third stages – it was divided into stages to min-imise the impact on the opera-tion of the hospital – involved demolishing existing wards, the removal of 90 tonnes of mason-ry rubble, building a new ward,

and clearing extensive amounts of hazardous asbestos from above the ceiling. The new ward included a nurses’ station, isolated rooms, ensuites, a staff lounge, training rooms, and administration support facili-ties. The team that completed the project included five Indig-enous employees and four ap-prentices.

According to Steve Margetic, Sitzler was awarded all of the above projects – at least in part – due to their reputation for taking on challenging work.

“We’re a mainstream contrac-tor in many senses, but we tend to do the more unusual and the more one-off type work,” Steve says. “We’ve been involved in

most of the key infrastructure projects in the north for the last 30 years. That includes health facilities. It’s something we take a lot of pride in.”

“We’re a company that puts a lot of emphasis on preplanning, and we have an incredible team in place,” he explains. “Our methodologies are very well considered, our staff have a very high skill level, and our re-lationship with our supply chain allow us to take on these more unusual projects, and effective-ly manage them.”

That ability to take on projects with unique challenges – and hand them over successfully – has enabled Sitzler to build longstanding relationships

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with many of their key clients. Some of those relationships go back 40 years – they have been working with the Department of Defence, for instance, since the late 70s.

Steve explains that loyalty:

“We build trust with our cli-ents,” he says. “We do that by being dependable, and not just when things are going well. We believe the measure of a con-tractor is revealed during tough times. That’s when you truly know who’s going to stand up and do the right thing. That’s

our approach. We believe that, above all things, we have to do the right thing. We have to look after the client’s interest.”

“That key principle is embed-ded in all our people,” he con-tinues. “All of our site people, our contract administrators, our pre-contract teams – their focus is on building trust, and on making sure clients are com-fortable dealing with us, so that when we have to, we can have the conversations that need to be had. We know it’s very dif-ficult to have those meaning-ful conversations during the

course of a project if you don’t have those relationships in place.”

One of the meaningful relation-ships Sitzler enjoys is with the NT Government Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Lo-gistics, their client at the Royal Darwin Hospital. That relation-ship goes back at least 20 years, to when Sitzler first delivered a $43M upgrade of the hospital as part of a joint venture. That project was also highly techni-cal and challenging, and also multi-award-winning.

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Sitzler followed up their suc-cess on that initial project with continued work at the hospital over the past 20 years. As the projects have come up, Steve says they have always been in-terested in throwing their hat in, because they like the chal-lenge inherent in that work.

“Health projects tend to have higher levels of planning and quality requirements,” he says. “They are ideally suited to us, to the way we do business, and to the expectations we have of ourselves.”

Steve adds that he’s grateful that the NT Department of In-frastructure, Planning and Lo-gistics put that trust in them, because the company’s work at the Royal Darwin Hospital is among the work he’s most proud of – the paediatric ward upgrade, in particular.

“When you look at the quality of product that’s there now, in comparison to what was there when we started, it’s tremen-dous,” he says. “That’s a credit to the client’s vision, the design team, and to our team for deliv-ering it.”

Again, Steve says that he doesn’t just include the people on site. He notes that Sitzler employs over 100 people, many of them longstanding, and he says they are all vital to the company’s success. He says the industry acclaim is a credit to all of them.

“We’ve got a fantastic staff,” he said, when he was interviewed after winning ‘Large Civil Con-struction Business of the Year.’ “Our business is nothing with-out our people. We’re eternally grateful for the support they continue to provide us.”

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“Our people care,” he adds now. “They care about the legacy we leave when we finish a job.”

Steve also extends credit for the consistent acclaim to the com-pany’s roster of subcontractors and suppliers, most of whom are also longstanding.

For example, there’s NT Elec-trical Group – a Darwin-based provider of electrical works, in-cluding installation, servicing, and maintenance for commer-cial, industrial, and residential projects. They are a company that takes pride in delivering

projects with the highest quality electrical systems in the North-ern Territory. Like Sitzler, the cornerstone of their business is their team, and their team’s focus and dedication.

It’s because they have partners like that, Steve says, that Sitzler was not only able to deliver their work at the Royal Darwin Hospital to a high standard of quality, but also deliver on time, and with minimal impact to the operational hospital environ-ment.

Minimising that impact is, in

fact, something that the team at Sitzler is particularly proud of, as it was particularly chal-lenging. For example, the pae-diatric ward upgrade involved significant amounts of demoli-tion, which is typically very dis-ruptive. To reduce that disrup-tion, they adopted specific work methods to reduce noise and vibration, such as using foam mattresses to hide the sound of falling rubble.

“It was quite laborious, labour intensive work,” Steve says. “There were a lot of challenges. But we were able to carefully

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plan around them and contin-ue to manage them throughout the life of the project.”

“We also kept in mind that we were in someone else’s space,” he adds. “That’s the view we take. We recognise that we can be an inconvenience to a cli-ent, and in fact, us being there makes their job more difficult – albeit, there’s a benefit when the project’s finished. We re-spect that and we make the process as easy as possible.”

At the Royal Darwin Hospital, Steve says that their team inter-

acted with the hospital stake-holders daily, and often multi-ple times a day, to keep them up to date.

“We made sure that health staff that were on the ground, managing the public every day, always knew what was com-ing up, and they could answer questions when questions were asked of them,” he says. “When-ever possible, we made sure they would be able to respond in a manner that didn’t increase their stress or increase the diffi-culty of them undertaking their work.”

“It’s all about managing the re-lationship in a proactive and pragmatic manner,” he con-cludes, “so people can get on and do what they need to do.”

Moving forward, Sitzler aims to continue their award-win-ning streak. They highly value those accolades because they see them as validation for their staff. “It’s validation of the approach our staff take when they’re de-livering their projects,” Steve says. “These are their awards. It shows them they are doing business the right way.”

Sitzler also aims to continue winning projects in the health-care sector. Those projects are particularly important to them.“Healthcare in northern Austra-lia is something that’s dear to us,” Steve says. “Health depart-ments up here generally have huge challenges ahead of them, and they do their work very, very well. They have fantastic people in them. To be able to work with them to enhance their ability to provide healthcare is a priv-ilege.”

“They’re also interesting proj-ects for us,” he adds. “They’re not run of the mill. They are dif-ferent. They provide important variation in the type of work our people get exposed to.”

The company’s core sectors,

meanwhile, continue to be de-fense and infrastructure. As Sit-zler continues its strategic and structured growth, Steve sees them taking on even more of those projects, and delivering them to the same high stan-dard the company has become known for across the country.

Looking forward

DECEMBER 2019

For more on Sitzler – includ-

ing their diverse array of ser-

vices, their professional team,

and their long list of industry

awards – visit

https://www.sitzler.com.au/

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