Kim Liddell, managing director of NDEA
When Kim Liddell switched from leading a nomadic lifestyle in her early 30s, she had two young children and needed a flexible job. “I saw an opportunity in the market and thought that I’d buy a truck and send it to work,” she recalls.
We’re not talking any old truck. It wasn’t set up to deliver groceries to online shoppers, or glammed up as a mobile party venue to circle city hotspots. Hers was custom-built to lug high-pressure water excavation gear to blast and then suck up dirt and muck so that essential underground services could safely and easily be accessed.
“I had taken time off to be a mum,” explains Liddell. “Prior to that, I ran sales and marketing for a cruise company in the Whitsundays. In between, I travelled a lot with my husband, Paul’s work. We moved to Sydney for him to work as a contractor on the Westlink M7 toll road project. Some new technology had emerged and not many people here were using it. I thought there was a market need. It couldn’t be that hard to run one truck and a couple of guys or girls. Perhaps I was bold or naive or both. It turned out to be a steep learning curve, but the industry was extremely welcoming.”
The week she put her first truck on the road, Liddell gave birth to her third child.
“Even though the statistics don’t show it, the industry is extremely welcoming. Customers were happy to use me, suppliers were happy to supply, and so I didn’t have the trials that a lot of women find working on construction sites. I had been around the industry for several years and had an awareness and understanding.”
Liddell now operates 10 trucks and is a director and vice-president of the Civil Contractors Federation NSW. A recent survey showed 4% of the industry’s workforce is women. “That’s really low. Some 76% of them are in administration roles, and very, very few are in civil construction.”
Liddell says women face definite challenges working in construction. “At the younger end of the scale, it’s about gaining confidence and finding their voice; to know that it’s okay to speak up. Then there are site-specific issues that women struggle with. We’ve created templates and a code of practice on how to manage that in a workplace that’s male dominated. But times are changing. We can embrace our feminine side and lead in a different way. I would love to employ more women, but they’re very hard to find.”
It’s obvious that Liddell’s own work is mucky. Digging can cause damage so Liddell uses high-pressure water jets designed to carefully expose underground services then suck up the mess left behind. A neat opening is left for plumbers, sparkies and others to work on the exposed fibre optics, gas, water pipes or electrical cables. “Think of a high-pressure gurney like you would use to clean a driveway,” says Liddell.
Her business brought in about $200,000 in its first year, which has increased to several million dollars. Her company, Non Destructive Excavations Australia, has the gear to work on large projects, including Sydney’s NorthConnex and WestConnex road projects, the Metro rail system, bus transit ways and electrical sub-stations. It is also called in to provide access around the base of heritage trees without risking damage. “We’ve come ahead in leaps and bounds in the vac industry over the years,” says Liddell. Counterparts in the US even now come to Sydney to see what she’s doing, because she says they view Australia as a pioneer.
To develop further, Liddell’s attention has recently turned to recycling the mud slurry that otherwise she has to dispose of. She has opened a facility in western Sydney to re-use the waste. The water can easily be used in her business, while the mud slurry contains sand and clay. The latter is compressed to make clay cakes for sale to brickmakers, while the sand and stone are used in landscaping or concreting.