Menno Henneveld
HENNEVELD, Menno, AM BE Grad Dip Admin GAICD Hon FIEAust FAICD FCILT FTSE FCSIA Hon MIPWEA (1946 - 2021)
Menno was born in Utrecht, Holland, on April 25, 1946. He was the only son of accountant John Henneveld and his wife Joan Elizabeth Henneveld (nee De Waal).
Menno’s father, John, travelled on the “Nelly” from Rotterdam to Fremantle, in August 1952, to get employment and secure accommodation for the family to move to Australia. He was unable to work as an accountant until he met Australian requirements so worked at the Midland Workshops. Menno followed with his sister, Marianne Ilona and their mother, sailing on the “Fairsea” and arriving in Fremantle five months later, on December 29, 1952.
Menno attended the Bayswater Primary School for a year whilst his father was being accredited as an accountant. The family then moved to Meckering around 1954 for several years. By 1958, the family was living in Geraldton, where Menno attended Geraldton Senior High School. He was a high achiever both academically and with sport.
On completing matriculation, Menno applied for and was successful in getting offers of engineering cadetships at the Main Roads Department and the Public Works Department (PWD). The diversity of work in the PWD appealed to him so he joined the PWD on March 7, 1963 and commenced studying Civil Engineering at the University of Western Australia.
In August 1968, Menno married Monika and they had two sons, Jason and Marcus.
On graduation from the four year course, in 1969, he worked at the PWD Shenton Park Engineering Research Station. Projects on which he was involved included the Ord River Dam Spillway, Gascoyne River Flooding and Port Hedland Harbour current modelling. Menno enjoyed the intellectual challenges of innovating to calibrate the models and replicate environmental conditions as well as the opportunity to create effective engineering solutions.
During this time, Menno completed a Graduate Diploma in Administration at Curtin University.
Around 1970, Menno transferred to PWD Construction, Major Hydraulic Undertakings (MHU), as Assistant Construction Engineer, initially working at Mandurah on deep sewerage and water supply. He then was appointed Resident Engineer Wagin working on deep sewerage and the Narrogin Katanning water pipeline. There was also sewerage treatment works upgrading such as Gnowangerup and other water supply work.
In 1974, he worked as Resident Engineer Kununurra with Construction MHU on completing the Ord River Dam as well as sewerage works in Wyndham and Kununurra. In 1975, Menno moved to Bunbury as Assistant District Engineer, responsible for construction, including irrigation construction.
From 1975 to 1977 he was Area Engineer Merredin with the responsibility for both construction and operations, in particular the “Main Conduit” supplying water to the farmlands and goldfields. From 1978 to 1981 he was District Engineer Collie with the challenges of catchment salinity management and rehabilitation on top of construction and operations. In 1981 he returned to head office as Regional Engineer South West, looking after the Bunbury, Collie and Albany Districts.
Menno moved to a more administrative role as Deputy PWD Executive Engineer late in 1981 and continued in that role until the merger of the PWD and Metropolitan Water Supply. He was part of the Project Group, established in 1983 to effect the merger by July 1, 1985 to create the Water Authority of Western Australia (WAWA).
Following the merger, Menno was appointed Principal Engineer Construction and Maintenance WAWA. In 1987 he purchased and deployed micro tunnelling equipment for underground pipeline and sewer construction as part of his career long search for better ways to construct underground services.
In 1989, Menno was appointed General Manager Engineering Services WAWA. With control of the Electrical and Mechanical design department, Menno’s team, together with Ewbank Preece Ltd and Sinclair Knight justified the automation of the WAWA major water systems.
WAWA approved expenditure of $25M for telemetry to control and remotely automate their water assets. WAWA realised if they could manage and drive their assets harder, they could postpone a future upgrade of their supply system.
ABB was engaged to provide a SCADA/telemetry system to automate and remote control of the Trunk Main System to a new systems control centre in Leederville. This included up to 150 sites which was commissioned in 1993. The more significant project was to automate and remote control the Perth to Kalgoorlie water pipeline completed in 1903 to C.Y. O’Connor’s concept and design.
The bill for pumping water to the Wheatbelt and Kalgoorlie was $7M per year, which challenged the designers to achieve at least as good a result as the human operators expertise that had been built over 90 years of operation. The final solution uses techniques of Expert Systems, to incorporate this accumulated experience into the algorithms. This project was commissioned in 1994 with an interim control centre at Cunderdin, which was then moved to Leederville control centre in 2004.
Menno success and achievements in WAWA moved him to General Manager Customer Services, then General Manager Commercial and finally Director Major Developments.
In December 2002, Menno was appointed Commissioner Main Roads a position he held until December 2012.
Menno was responsible for delivering more than $6 billion of road infrastructure projects, $5.5 billion of road services whilst managing the 18,000 kilometre road network worth $42 billion. For his outstanding work public works engineering he was awarded the Ken Michael Gold Medal.
Main Roads WA describe Menno’s legacy to their organisation was his focus on leadership and values, his approach to contracting and his support and commitment to the regions. He was an advocate for developing our future workforce which saw a significant growth in our graduate programs during his tenure as Commissioner and created the (former) REACH Foundation which provided support, development, and employment of young people in construction related roles.
To honour Menno’s memory, Main Roads WA offer a scholarship named the Menno Henneveld Scholarship. Main Roads have also named their Geraldton Offices as the Menno Henneveld Centre.
Menno became Chair of the Energy and Water Ombudsman in August 2015 and held that position until his death in 2021.
He held many international, national and state positions, including inaugural Chairman, Australasian Society Trenchless Technology; Chairman, International Society Trenchless Technology; Chairman Austroads; Australia's First Delegate, World Road Association (WRA); Chair, WRA International Relations Communications Commission; Vice President of the WRA until 2021; Past Board Member, Australian Road Research Board; Founder and past Chair, ROADS Foundation (Road Industry Traineeships); Chair, National Heavy Vehicle Regulator Implementation Board; Independent Director, Infrastructure Sustainability Council Australia until 2021.
In January 2015, he was named a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to engineering, particularly road transport infrastructure.
Menno became a Student Member of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, in 1969 becoming a Member by 1979, then a Fellow and in 2013 an Honorary Fellow. He assisted Engineers Australia in judging engineering excellence award entries and from 2018 was WA Chief Judge. In 2012, Menno was awarded as both the WA Professional Engineer and the National Professional Engineer of the Year, a prestigious award recognising the highest technical, professional and community standards in engineering.
Menno was a Fellow and Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He was also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He was made an Honorary Member of the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia.
Menno died at died on June 6, 2021, aged 75, at Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital. He was survived by his wife Monika and their two sons Jason and Marcus.
References:
Susan Kreemer Pickford, Engineers Australia, Obituary for Menno Henneveld, 8 June 2021.
Oral History Transcript - Interviewer Doug Ayre - 17 August 2018.
National Archives of Australia, Records Johan Henneveld.
National Archives of Australia, Nelly, 13.8.1952.
National Archives of Australia, Fairsea, 29.12.1952.
Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 23.10.1958, p. 3595.
Energy and Water Ombudsman Annual Report 2014-15.
Public Service Lists 1963 to 1986.
Compiled by Chris Fitzhardinge and Russell Ellen, March 17, 2025
