Renee

Renee Smith has been with Royal HaskoningDHV for 15 years, having joined when it was still BCP. During this time, she spent a year in transport, seven years in water, and seven years in aviation. She currently fills the role of Designer/Design Coordinator/BIM Coordinator.

Renee says she was drawn to RHDHV because she knew that if she wanted to change lives and make a real difference in her community, she would need to align herself with a company with a similar vision.

“Around the age of 6, we moved to a house in a township. All the roads were dirt roads. One day, workers and machinery arrived on our streets, and when they left, we had tar roads with kerbs and everything. There were street names painted on the kerbs and stop signs and streetlights. This was when the spark was lit, and throughout my life, I was curious about which careers would lead me to a world of enhancing the lives of everyday people.”

RHDHV’s focus on its people's continued growth and her current role in aviation inspired Renee to further her studies. “I’m a qualified draftsman, and I've been doing my N-levels since 2018. I’ve got three more modules to go; then I’ll have finished my N4, N5, and N6 civil engineering.”

Renee loves the work she does and is incredibly passionate about sharing it with schoolgirls and showing them how amazing and fulfilling a career in aviation can be. She speaks proudly about what they’ve achieved through the ‘Girls in Aviation’ initiative.

“I’ve always had this feeling in my heart that I want to give back and share and uplift anybody that was in a position where it would make a difference to the trajectory of their lives. Within a year of being inspired to create this initiative, we hosted our first event: a workshop for 30 young girls in Grades 8 and 9. We then had an aviation fun day with speakers, including a female army pilot . Then this year, it blew up into three events. It’s really growing, and we’ve had incredibly positive feedback. So many of the girls have said that it made a big impact on their lives and their career choices.”

Renee describes herself as a technical creative. “I can be very arty,” she says, “but I can also be very pedantic about my details and drawings; people say I'm very ‘extra’. But I appreciate that because, yes, I am. So, I can swing from one side of the pendulum all the way to creativity as well and find a balance in the middle.”

Renee is also creative outside of work and enjoys doing watercolour paintings of doorways and windows.

And her favourite work memory? Searching Tanzania for a giant giraffe! “The architect had placed a giant giraffe in the atrium of the impressions for the designs, and when we were in Kilimanjaro, she said to me, ‘why don’t we go get this giraffe’,” she laughs. “I was game, and off we went. We came close to finding one almost tall enough, but it was a wire sculpture, and we had to try to match the mediums used in Africa. We didn’t get it in the end, but it was so much fun taking on the challenge and conceptualising this whole thing. It was one of those moments where you realise it’s just amazing to be alive and do this as part of your career.”

Renee says she’s reminded daily of how awesome it is that she’s pursuing her passion. “I may not have studied to be a civil engineer, but I still pursued my passion of wanting to be in engineering and doing what those men that came to pave the roads did – being part of the industry that brings those kinds of services to the people. It's nice to be able to have that feeling regularly. And I do.”