Meet The Team – Daniel Stone
For our latest Meet the Team, we caught up with Daniel Stone, who is part of the team supporting our client’s projects through practical and relevant WHS consulting. A highly experienced safety leader whose varied practical and technical knowledge has seen him positively impact WHS performance in varied sectors and projects, we caught up with Daniel to learn more about his career, love of extreme sports and an unusual request for a chicken heart souffle.
Why did you become a Construction/Engineering Professional?
I got into safety because I have the ability to apply science and psychology in real-world settings to make a positive difference. Safety science was the perfect fit for me; I find science fascinating but would not want to be stuck working purely on the theoretical; I need to have a practical way to take ideas and concepts and turn them into something usable.
What do you love about our industry?
I love the variety of work and the chance to understand people and implement changes that help them be safer. Every site has challenges, and every team is different. For me, that means no two days are the same as each day presents new challenges, new people to work with and programs to design and implement.
What are you working on at the moment?
Designing a full safety management system for an indigenous cleaning, security and cash transit business based in Darwin.
What has been your greatest professional achievement to date?
Definitely redeveloping and rolling out the emergency management system for Aurizon. As you would appreciate, this was a huge project with multiple stakeholders, diverse audiences, and technical aspects, so to be part of its success was a huge achievement.
What’s the best project you have worked on?
Developing and rolling out the aviation refuelling side of IOR petroleum and getting to refuel aircraft. A high-risk environment, hazardous materials, manual handling, heavy equipment, and lots of moving elements – this project had it all – and I could take what I had worked on and roll it out as part of the team.
What’s the most useful thing you’ve learned throughout your career?
The importance and ability to understand and work with different people. This is particularly true in safety, where a one size fits all approach doesn’t work – knowing your audience, their needs, and their challenges is vital and something that never changes.
What would your last meal be like?
The strangest thing I could get my hands on like chicken heart souffle; I mean, if it’s your last meal, you may as well make it something unusual.
What is the last movie you watched or series you binged?
A Trip to Infinity which takes the thoughts of scientists and mathematicians and examines the idea of the infinite and what it means for humanity.
What excites you about the future of infrastructure?
The opportunity to work with a collection of clients in new industries. Infrastructure is diversifying, you only have to look at the growth in new energy and resources projects to see how the sector is changing across the types of projects we work on and some of the locations we work in.
If you could have worked on any major project from history, what would it have been?
NASA’s development of the Saturn v rockets during the space race. Not only would it have been an amazing technical program to work on, but being part of something that enabled humanity to take a step on the Moon would have been….out of this world!
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I cycle through hobbies pretty fast, most recently Muay Thai and varied health practices (breathwork, ice baths, meditation) and any adventurous, high-adrenaline activity (motorcycle racing, sky diving, hunting). My all-time favourite activity is skiing. They maybe don’t sound like the typical hobbies of someone working in safety, but maybe that’s a perception issue; safety isn’t about saying ‘no’ it’s about saying yes in a way that minimises the potential for harm/
What is the one piece of advice you would pass on to a project team to give their project the best chance of success?
If unsure, ask. There are still many people out there who will pretend to know something or who will assume they know something and deliver an outcome that wasn’t right; stopping, thinking and asking a question is the simple way to find out the information that you need to know.
What do you enjoy about working at Lidiar Group?
The amazing team that we have. Everyone is very different, but they are all great individuals. I am also grateful for the supportive and trusting work atmosphere.