Cool under pressure

When Kim Liddell switched from leading a nomadic lifestyle in her early 30s, she had two young children and needed a flexible job. “I saw an opportunity in the market and thought that I’d buy a truck and send it to work,” she recalls.

- ALAN DEANS

We’re not talking any old truck. It wasn’t set up to deliver groceries to online shoppers, or glammed up as a mobile party venue to circle city hotspots. Hers was custom-built to lug high-pressure water excavation gear to blast and then suck up dirt and muck so that essential underground services could safely and easily be accessed.

“I had taken time off to be a mum,” explains Liddell. “Prior to that, I ran sales and marketing for a cruise company in the Whitsundays. In between, I travelled a lot with my husband, Paul’s work. We moved to Sydney for him to work as a contractor on the Westlink M7 toll road project. Some new technology had emerged and not many people here were using it. I thought there was a market need. It couldn’t be that hard to run one truck and a couple of guys or girls. Perhaps I was bold or naive or both. It turned out to be a steep learning curve, but the industry was extremely welcoming.”

The week she put her first truck on the road, Liddell gave birth to her third child.

“Even though the statistics don’t show it, the industry is extremely welcoming. Customers were happy to use me, suppliers were happy to supply, and so I didn’t have the trials that a lot of women find working on construction sites. I had been around the industry for several years and had an awareness and understanding.”

Liddell now operates 10 trucks and is a director and vice-president of the Civil Contractors Federation NSW. A recent survey showed 4% of the industry’s workforce is women. “That’s really low. Some 76% of them are in administration roles, and very, very few are in civil construction.”