Steven Francis felt he had come full circle at the 2014 New Zealand Institute of Building Northern Chapter Awards.

He was handed the Theo Oettle Award by Unitec associate professor Dr Linda Kestle - the woman who tutored him while studying for the drafting career he left behind five years ago.

This year, Dr Kestle was there to present Francis the award for the outstanding academic results he achieved in his final year of a bachelor of construction.

In a further irony, Francis now works for Kalmar Construction as a quantity surveyor - the Theo Oettle award is named in honour of one of the founders, who established Kalmar in March 2001.

So it comes as no surprise that Francis was also the recipient of a 2014 Unitec Senior Scholar Award.

The 2014 graduate is set for success in the construction industry and is driven to make a difference.

Formerly a draftsman, Francis said this experience exposed him to many parts of the wider construction industry and led him to return to university as a 39-year-old in 2010 and retrain as a quantity surveyor.

The English-born Kiwi, who immigrated here as a four-year-old with his family in 1974, has family ties in the construction industry - his maternal and paternal grandfathers were both builders.

But Francis, now aged forty-three, attributes his change in career to a growing desire to tackle new challenges, something he felt was no longer a possibility as a draftsman.

“My qualification [BCon] has set me up to do so many things. I wanted to make sure for the rest of my working life I had options,” he said.

Francis’ schooling at Waitakere College led him to complete an intermediate year for architecture at the University of Auckland. But he quickly realised it wasn’t for him and enrolled in the Carrington Polytechnic New Zealand Certificate in Drafting the following year.

In 1992, he completed the qualification and went on to work for the Initial Home Franchise, where he began his career drafting on drawing boards. This was followed by various other drafting positions at architecture firms in Auckland. 

It wasn’t until he had his first child with wife, Georgie, in 2007, that he reflected on where his career was heading and decided to make the change to construction.

“I had had a go at most things and I was going through the motions. I also had a lot of construction knowledge that I didn’t get to use or apply,” he said.

Francis has always had a strong interest in quantity surveying, an area he was often exposed to in his job as a draftsman.

So, with his wife’s blessing, he embarked on Unitec’s Bachelor of Construction degree in 2010, completing a year and a half of full-time study, followed by two and a half years of part-time study, during which time he also cared for the couple’s two young boys, Callum, 7, and Rory, 5.

It was a relatively hectic period for Francis, so when he received the Theo Oettle Award, followed by a Unitec Senior Scholar Award, he was pleasantly surprised.

“With kids I never really put myself under pressure to do well but I just tried really hard to do the best I could with everything.”

Francis was offered a job with Kalmar Construction shortly after graduating, and now holds the position of quantity surveyor.

In his short tenure at Kalmar Construction so far, Francis has already worked on various interesting projects. He worked on an apartment development in an existing building at 8 Nugent street, Auckland, which is yet to be named. He has also recently completed an interior – a restaurant street in the Metro Centre on Queen Street.

“I am really pleased I have made the change to what I do now. It’s exciting, it’s interesting, every day is different,” he said.

In his drafting career Francis worked on major projects including what is now the Vero Tower (a 40-storey office block) on Fort Street, Auckland, and both the North Harbour and Waikato stadiums. He feels he was well respected in his profession. “My aim as a quantity surveyor is to get myself to that same point again,” he said.

And judging by Francis’ long list of achievements over the last few months, he looks set to do just that.