Name: Rod Nutbourne MCIOB
Employer: Norwest Holst
Project: The Tank Museum, Bovington
Contract: GC/Works
The scale of Rod Nutbourne’s success on this project is clear from his membership of a very special elite: the handful of people that the client has permitted to ride in its pride and joy, a working World War II German Tiger tank.
It was a signal honour awarded for forging a genuine and extremely successful partnership where the client never felt ‘nickel and dimed’. Rod handled change firmly, pragmatically and collaboratively. Client and contractor were willing to help each other out, and both gained as a result. A good example was during project close-out, when the client let Norwest Holst use its office space at no extra cost, while the latter left the site toilets in place for use by museum visitors during the peak season.
Right from the start Rod worked hard to keep the client relationship as effective as possible. His tender proposal was the only one willing to compromise the convenience of the site operation to allow the venue to remain open during the works.
And he was the only tendering project manager to undertake a proper ground survey to quantify the risk. His appreciation of the non-profit-making client’s need for its contractor to buy out the risk was the sort of insight that so thoroughly impressed the client during the whole project.
Rod was clearly in charge from the off, willing to shoulder the responsibility for delivering the contract. He personally supervised the overnight concrete pours, and postponed his own holiday at a key moment.
He proved resourceful and determined when events did not go to plan. Faced with a delay to the structural steel package, he identified the key elements and negotiated with the following trades to mitigate the programme loss. When design information flowed too slowly, he held joint workshops with the architects so his team could elicit and understand the key design principles.
He took it on himself to understand the design vision and implement it. It was a stance that, helped by his keen eye for detail and considered technical understanding, stood the project in excellent stead.
Value: £10.4m