Dunedin’s Ryan Keogh is a very happy young man. At just 22 years old, he has been able to capitalise on his boyhood love of woodwork and building by earning a living in the construction industry and relishing opportunities he could never have imagined.

“I’d always been interested since a young fella in being hands-on and outdoors. My grandfather told me quite a lot about carpentry and building. He was a plasterer and clocked on I was interested. I was three years old and trying to cut down trees with saws. Then I started nailing boards of wood together. I remember being behind the garage at my parents’ house and thinking, ‘I’ll do it properly this time and build some timber frames’. I built a crappy lean-to with a timber roof. It was fun,” he says laughing.

Now he is a qualified builder and current holder of the Registered Master Builders/Carters 2011 Apprentice of the Year award.

He has already joined the Department of Building and Housing’s Licensed Building Practitioners scheme that makes everyone take accountability for their own work. “I wanted to make sure I got my licence. The government will be pushing it this April,” he says. But his qualifications have exacted a lot of study, hard work and dedication along the way.

Ryan grew up in Musselburgh, Dunedin and was there until he was nine or 10, when his parents split up. He moved to Roslyn – another suburb – where he now owns his own home. The path to his high-flying career got a kick-start early on when he was in high school at Dunedin’s John McGlashen College, where qualified carpenter and woodwork teacher Don Campbell noticed Ryan’s talent and enthusiasm and took him under his wing. “He was a good mentor and joinery projects included outdoor chairs, tables, boxes, and a few things like that,” recalls Ryan. “I remember him telling me about the apprenticeship scheme and the wealth of opportunities.”

Ryan’s father, Geoff, had given his son a good work ethic early on and employed him at his manufacturing company, Otago Knitwear Limited, from his first year of high school. “Driven,” says Ryan of his dad. But the comment is not meant to be derogatory followed as it is by high praise for his father’s keen interest, backing and support over the years. It is no surprise then that Ryan has done very well in his chosen career.

He started in the industry with a pre-apprenticeship course at Otago Polytechnic and achieved a top student award, the National Certificate in Carpentry, and the offer of a scholarship and money to pay off his student loan from Naylor Love. “The pre-apprenticeship course is the one to do for getting into the industry. There were 20 students in each class when I was there. We actually built a three-bed house on that course. It was fully functional and was shipped off site and sold.”

Ryan joined construction company Naylor Love as an apprentice four years ago. He has never looked back. He started off on a $3 million commercial project, in charge of a team of five, putting an extra storey on top of a three-storey building. It needed quick completion for the University of Otago and he says it involved a lot of hard work for the team. The pace of life quickened even further for the young apprentice when he got the opportunity to study again at polytech and to make the most of help from Naylor Love mentors.

He studied for his New Zealand Institute of Management certificate on a 20-week course among a class of people twice his age who, he says, were already big managers of companies. “It was so I could gain a better understanding of managing people and how it all works. I enjoyed it even though it was quite difficult. I got an A+. I still bump into some of the people in my class in the street.” Meanwhile, he was also making the most of opportunities to learn on the job at Naylor Love, initially inspired by a young on-site Naylor Love foreman called Ross Paterson, who was in charge of 15 tradesmen and was happy to let Ryan see what he was doing.

But he cites his main mentor as site manager Paul Stevenson, for whom he ended up doing a couple of small jobs as a first year apprentice with the company. “He has only just turned 32 years of age and is one of the top site managers at work. He has done a lot of good things – built himself a house and mentored me throughout my career, allowing me to bounce a few ideas off him. He has taught me a lot of the big picture stuff. “Paul told me, ‘You’ve got to look at the project and how you’re completing it’. He is good at clear communication. I looked at him and saw the way he dealt with people and subcontractors in achieving goals.

“I have also enjoyed working with office project managers Jason Tutty and Peter McNab. I see them as basically where I’d like to take myself: ‘on to it’ guys. I want to make the most of working with guys like these. “It all depends who you are surrounded by. You can end up learning a lot. You have got to take the right steps; it is not as simple as being a builder. Doing things properly does take time. To be a qualified builder is a feat.”

Indeed, Ryan says he has been told by overseas travellers that Kiwi carpenters are what foreign companies want because New Zealand training is highly regarded, with professionals able to turn their hand to anything. Already he can count two multi-million dollar projects for Naylor Love among his own experience. He was involved with the $15 million build of an inmate search facility at Milburn Prison, which he fitted out himself, and a more recent $30 million contract to install 30 toilets and showers at the University of Otago Plaza building – in addition to cladding a stairwell there with American White Oak timber.

On a personal level, he has bought, gutted and refurbished a house in Mussel Bay and, having sold it on, is now living in his new home bought for rental purposes in Roslyn. The big project comes this year, when he is aiming to build his own home from scratch. “I’ve been keen on owning my own home since I was 15 years old. I’d been saving and saving as it was something I really wanted to achieve. I wanted to buy something that needed a lot of work and bought my first property in Mussel Bay.

“The renovation took nine months. I gutted the house, put an ensuite off the master bedroom, installed a new kitchen and painted the whole building. I lived there with a couple of flatmates. It’s a testing time living in a half-renovated house. “The idea of building my own house is an exciting prospect.” Quite how he will be able to fit that in alongside his work at Naylor Love, current part-time study (New Zealand Construction’s Management course) and other plans for an Outward Bound leadership course and an overseas convention, is anyone’s guess.

A chip off the old block, Ryan is likely to do all of it because he lives life to the full and is fulfilling his dreams. “I love the whole construction thing because you see such great results from your work. You can change the way things look.”