HKIE Online

Multidisciplinary engineer finds his tune: Ir Prof Reuben Chu
By Angela TAM

The image of a pop star may conjure up thoughts of fame and fortune at one's fingertips; think of Jackie Cheung commanding the attention of thousands of adoring fans at the Hong Kong Coliseum one day and spotted hobnobbing with other celebrities at some luxury hotel the next.

For a boy who not only loved singing and playing the guitar but was good enough to win a singing contest, this might even seem a viable career choice - one that was more attractive than the doctor, engineer or pilot that he'd considered becoming since kindergarten.

"I looked at the housing and infrastructure around us and wondered, is that my career? But I was too lazy to study hard," recalled Ir Prof Reuben Chu, HKIE President for 2010-11. "Medicine would have required a lot of hard work too so I didn't want to try that either."

Singing as a career crossed his mind after Ir Prof Chu won a singing contest in school, but ultimately he decided not to turn his hobby into a career - thanks to a classmate's experience.

"I had a classmate who became a singer. It was hard work too. He had to sing at clubs and bars and nobody would be paying any attention. It wasn't fun at all. Besides, my parents wouldn't have approved so I chose a profession in the end."

Science stream
Like so many who performed better in the science than the arts subjects in school, Ir Prof Chu naturally gravitated towards engineering. But what kind of engineering?

Electrical engineering was out - having accidentally electrocuted himself while playing with an electric socket as a boy, there was no way he was going to study something that involved fiddling with electricity. Mechanical engineering was a popular choice in Hong Kong in the 1970s, but it was the idea of being able to design interesting structures - like the Eiffel Tower, or London Bridge, or the Statue of Liberty - that captured his imagination: Ir Prof Chu made up his mind to become a civil engineer.

Though not a natural crammer, Ir Prof Chu nevertheless managed to earn himself the chance to study towards a masters degree at University College, Cardiff, in the UK after securing a BSc from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). And that was when the hard work began. He had gone so far to get a second degree, at a time when the sterling, at Ł1 to HK$14, was even more expensive than it is today, that anything less than the best he could give would be unacceptable.

Returning to Hong Kong with an MSc in Civil & Structural Engineering in 1981 after obtaining the highest average mark on the course, he joined Halcrow Asia Partnership as a graduate engineer and also took up work as a part-time lecturer at HKBU. After a few moves within the consultancy industry, he eventually joined Meinhardt Consulting Engineers in 1994 and became its managing director - structural, infrastructure and environmental.

Jack-of-all-trades
Although Ir Prof Chu identifies himself as a civil engineer, his portfolio actually suggests otherwise. His uniquely diverse CV includes tunnels, bridges, slope works, foundation work, office buildings, public housing, gas plant ... in fact, think of a type of physical structure, and the chance is you'd find it on Ir Prof Chu's CV.

So is he a civil engineer, a structural engineer, a geotechnical engineer or a computer programmer (he wrote the programs used to design many of his earlier projects)?

To Ir Prof Chu, it didn't matter. "If you're an engineer you should be able to do all kinds of engineering," he said. "Nowadays there are structural engineers who don't know how to handle geotechnical works and civil engineers who don't do buildings. I think every engineer should be trained to do it all. That gives you more opportunities to learn."

He remembered how, as a graduate engineer, he would often hear colleagues complain about projects they didn't like doing. By contrast, he was prepared to try his hands at everything and was therefore happy to swap responsibilities with his colleagues, so long as their superiors had no objection.

He relished practising in an era when engineers had the freedom to add value to the projects entrusted to them, without undue time constraints. That is no longer the case: today, the profession is under pressure to deliver to a tight timeframe squeezed further by frequent design changes. No engineer today, for example, would have the time Ir Prof Chu had in which to write the computer programs for coordinating a project or designing a road alignment, slope or tunnel. Of course, inexpensive software are now widely available to serve the same purpose - and that's just the problem, according to Ir Prof Chu.

"I wrote my programs in Fortran. Now people use Excel, which is convenient but the standardisations are difficult to control," he said. "People have also become too reliant on computer analysis and junior engineers seldom have the experience of physical behaviour of the designed elements to be able to check the accuracy of the results."

He was also concerned that lower and lower fees, together with a trend towards commercially-driven mergers, could lower the quality of the end products the profession is able to deliver.

On one hand, the lack of time and fee-based competition mean there is little room for the kind of research and development needed to develop better alternatives for clients. "Take noise barriers as an example," Ir Prof Chu said. "Right now they are mostly big steel structures that function to protect buildings near major roads from noise. R&D could be applied to find a lighter material than steel that would lessen the self-weight of a viaduct, for example, but there is neither time nor money to do that so whenever noise barriers are called for it becomes just a matter of copying previous examples."

On the other, the fact that many consultancies are now taken over, merged and run like businesses by finance professionals rather than engineers risks shifting the focus of engineering firms from quality engineering to financial performance.

These challenges are compounded by changes in engineering education.

"In the past engineering training was more intellectual. You were trained to think; now you will probably have that opportunity only at the master or PhD level," Ir Prof Chu said. "Today there is too much emphasis on homework at university and too many compulsory courses. Students can't choose to study fewer courses and do so in more depth, which may be more appropriate for their work after graduation."

This shift in focus from quality to quantity reflects universities' preoccupation with getting as high a world ranking as possible, which has increased the pressure on academics to publish and on students to perform well in exams - pressure that delivers short-term results but may jeopardise the long-term sustainability of the system and those involved in it.

Green building
Long before phrases like "green building", "energy efficiency" or "low-carbon" became current, Ir Prof Chu has been involved in pushing the construction industry to reduce its impact on the environment. Seven years ago he joined the then newly-established Hong Kong Professional Green Building Council (HKPGBC) and, after serving as chairman for two years, in 2007 and 2008, is now its immediate past chairman.

As HKPGBC past chairman in 2006, he persuaded the organisation to introduce a Green Building Award.

"Not many projects participated the first time but once everybody saw the recognition conferred on the winner peer pressure built up," Ir Prof Chu said. "We're running the award for the third time this year and the level of participation is much higher."

But Ir Prof Chu is pushing to do more. While HKPGBC was set up and therefore has the support of the five professional institutions, there was consensus that more stakeholders should be involved in green building. In response to the World Green Building Council initiative, it was decided that forming one body to represent all stakeholders in Hong Kong would avoid overlaps and make efforts to push the green agenda more effective. The Hong Kong Green Building Council was consequently set up last year, with the blessing of the Development Bureau, by the Construction Industry Council, HK-BEAM Society, Business Environment Council and HKPGBC.

Ir Prof Chu, one of the key promoters of this collaboration, also would like to see Hong Kong take an active role in sharing the green building agenda with the Mainland.

"LEED (the building environmental assessment method developed in the US) is popular in China but it's not necessarily most applicable outside the US. We hope to share our experience and work with the Mainland to establish an assessment method that is tailor-made for the country," Ir Prof Chu said.

In addition to a continued focus on green building issues, Ir Prof Chu would also like to concentrate on two areas during his presidency: getting engineers to become more involved in the community and raising awareness of engineers' contribution to society, in order to attract more young talents to take it up as a career. Establishing a hall of fame is one idea.

Though a member of HKIE for more than 25 years, Ir Prof Chu only became actively involved in institutional activities about ten years ago, after he had put in place measures, such as a training scheme and an efficient quality production system, that would facilitate his company's future development.

Despite a busy life, Ir Prof Chu has not neglected to cultivate a few hobbies. Singing remains one of them - though he regretted having put the guitar aside in the intervening years. He also plays golf and is a keen student of fung shui, the eight life symbols and the I Ching, having been attracted to the field by a fellow engineer.

He said they were not that different from engineering in terms of their practical application. Far from predetermining everything, these ancient teachings show how we can steer our lives through personal effort. It is no surprise therefore that Ir Prof Chu's advice for young engineers is to look at the long term rather than be too preoccupied with short-term gain.

"Many young people today live in relative comfort and it's hard for them to see beyond the short term. My advice for them is not to expect so much in terms of money when they're starting out, but to focus on gaining experience and their future development instead. You've got to put in the effort first before you can see the result. You will reap what you sow," he said.