Sergio Giudici
Guidici, Sergio, (1938-2002)
Dr Sergio Giudici arrived in Tasmania with his mother from the Italian Alps at the age of 10 to join his father who was working with the Hydro Electric Commission at Butlers Gorge. The young Sergio won a prize for English after just one year at Butlers Gorge Primary School.
Sergio completed his secondary education at the Hobart Technical High School, now New Town High School, matriculating in 1955, and went on to complete an honours degree in civil engineering at the University of Tasmania in 1960. In the same year he was the first migrant (new Australian) to be chosen Tasmanian Rhodes Scholar to study at the University of Oxford, gaining a doctorate for a thesis on the buckling strength of framed structures. The people of his village in northern Italy were very proud of him, and, as a young man studying at Oxford, on his first visit back to his birth place in the Italian mountain village of Sernio, his primary school teacher claimed this Rhodes Scholar and engineer as her own!
From that notable beginning in his engineering education, Sergio joined the then Hydro-Electric Commission in 1963 at the age of 25 as an engineer in the Dams Section. There he helped design the Cethana, Mackenzie and Bastyan concrete-faced rock fill dams and was principal designer of the Gordon Dam. The 140-metre double-curvature arch Gordon Dam, the highest arch dam in Australia, is one of Tasmania's icons and the structure for which Sergio gained most fame.
In 1977, he was promoted to Head of the Structures Section. He directed and helped to design the Pieman Road bridges, Murchison and Mackintosh Highway bridges and the Bastyan and Reece power stations. Both these power stations incorporated an innovative design that shortened construction time and became standard for all subsequent Hydro Tasmania power stations.
Since 1964 with the commissioning of the joint UTAS/HEC Computer housed in the Physics Building on the Sandy Bay campus computers were increasingly used in engineering design. Sergio was at the forefront of developing and using micro-computers and software for complex stress analysis and other tasks, including the analysis of seismic data for predicting earthquake loadings on the Tasman Bridge.
In 1983, Sergio was appointed Engineer Design Group One where he managed a group of 18 engineers and scientists involved in hydraulic, geomechanical, geotechnical, mechanical and technical work on the Gordon, King and Anthony power schemes and the Crotty Dam dewatering outlet.
Continuing his professional advancement, in 1988 Sergio was appointed Manager of the Civil Investigation and Design Division. Here his responsibility was for the output of 50 engineers grouped into specialist sections for the design of dams, tunnels, structures, gates, hydraulics, roads and feasibility studies on future hydro-electric schemes.
In 1991, Sergio became the founding General Manager Consulting where he organised and managed a multi-disciplinary group of 250 people who designed the civil, electrical and mechanical components of Hydro Tasmania's last two power schemes and maintained Tasmania’s 54 large dams and catchments. He was the driving force behind Consulting's plans and activities to market its expertise to external clients.
Between June 1999 and his retirement in July 2000, he was General Manager Research and Development and was responsible for projects in renewable energy. During that year he led the design team for Tasmania’s first large-scale wind farm.
The name Sergio Giudici is known throughout the world for innovative design techniques in major hydro-electric structures. He was appointed by the World Bank and Asia Development Bank to international panels of eminent engineers to review the design and safety of dams in China and Indonesia.
In the years following he undertook assignments in Indonesia, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, The Philippines as well as for the South Australian, Victorian and Queensland state governments.
He also lectured part time at the University of Tasmania on Hydro Engineering. Sergio maintained an abiding interest in university education, contributing in various ways to committees and departments. He had an active role with the Church earning him the respect and admiration of many clerical friends.
Most of all he was devoted to his family, his wife, Rossalyn and their seven children. He had the pleasure of working with his daughter Christina but did not get to see his grandson, Oliver, graduate with an honours degree in civil engineering from the University of Tasmania and start work with the Hydro.
He was recognised in 1994 for his endeavour by being admitted to a fellowship in the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a rare national honour. He is one of five Tasmanians who are fellows of the academy. Sergio and his top people, together with the then marketing group Hydro-Electric Commission Enterprises Corporation (HECEC}, ‘sold’ engineering expertise to the world. In his valedictory address in 2000 Sergio said he was ‘most pleased at having been able to hang on to the skills and expertise embodied in the consulting business unit’.
After leaving the Hydro and undergoing heart surgery in 2000 Sergio continued working as an independent consultant undertaking assignments in dam, hydro-power engineering, and wind energy studies as an expert reviewer in PR China and New Zealand. He was working in New Zealand at the time his heart failed in April 2002.
St Mary’s Cathedral was filled to capacity with family, friends, colleagues, business associates, priests and two archbishops for his funeral.
Dr Giudici is considered one of Tasmania’s finest engineers, and as a mark of the respect in which he is held, Hydro Tasmania decided to fund a scholarship in his name to encourage talented graduates to undertake research in engineering or the environmental sciences.
As well, contributions from New Town High School old scholars contributed funds to establish Old Scholars Sergio Giudici Award commemorating the school’s first Rhodes Scholar. The latter award recognises initiative and all-round ability. Academic achievement and sporting performance are important factors as are contribution to the life of the school, community involvement and personal interests and activities.
A fitting tribute.
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