POST IN AUSTRALIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27390, 16 May 1950, Page 4

POST IN AUSTRALIA

Hydro-electric Works Designer RESIGNATION RECEIVED PA AUCKLAND. May 15. Mr W. A. Bloodworth, chief designing hydro engineer of the Ministry of Works has handed in his resignation to take up a position with an Australian State electricity authority. The Government will thus be without the services of the man who has been in charge of designing nearly all the dominion’s major electric projects in the last decade. The hydro-electric designing staff, which the American expert, Dr J. L. Savage recently said needed to be expanded, lost its senior mechanical engineer, Mr H. Sunley, to a private firm in Australia in February. It was stated by the Ministry of Works in Wellington today that Mr Bloodworth’s resignation had been received but had yet to go to the public service commission. It was expected that the usual three months’ notice would apply.

While the exact post to which Bloodworth will go was not revealed, it was stated that he was not going to the Snowy River hydro-electric authority. Mr Bloodworth, who is 36 years of age, has had the major responsibility in the designing of the following hydro electric works —Piripaua and Kaitawa generating stations at Waikaremoana, extensions to Tuai (Waikaremoana) and Arapuni, Karapiro, Maraetai, Whakamaru and the South Island stations at Highbank, Tekapo, Cobb River and Roxburgh. He also designed the control gates at Lake Taupo and the fciphons at Waikaremoana. A son of Mr T. Bloodworth, MLC. of Auckland, he was educated at the Auckland Grammar School and at the Auckland and Canterbury University Colleges. After early experience with the Public Works Department and other employers, he took up' an appointment with the Fletcher Construction Co, Ltd., and was engaged on steel frame design and supervision. In 1938 he joined the hydro-electric branch of the Public Works Department and has continued in the field of hydraulic structure design. He was sent on a five months’' tour of the United States and Canada in 1947 to study modern construction methods. Mr Bloodworth was awarded the Fulton Gold Medal for a paper presented to the New Zealand Institution of Engineers in 1948. In addition to being a Bachelor of Engineering, he holds the qualifications of A.M.I.C.E and A.M.N.Z.I.E.

In an effort to build up the designing staff, engineers have been sought overseas by the Ministry of Works, some appointments have been made and men are, in several cases, on their way here.