A team from Mott Macdonald's Sheffield office romped away with the trophy for the Merit management game in Loughborough last month, despite this being the most international finals ever: for the first time in the competition's 25 year history, a majority of the six finalists were from overseas.
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ICE's senior vice president Sir John Armitt and Chartered Institute of Building past president Alan Crane presenting the ICE silver salver and a CIOB cheque to the winners of the Silver Jubilee Merit competition, a team from Mott Macdonald's Sheffield office. From left: Alan Crane, Faustas Buskevicius, Declan Corrigan, Will Jebb, Klev Reodique, Matthew Catton, Sandeep Patel and Sir John Armitt. |
Final-day drama was reserved for the battle for second place, with the 'Amazing' team from Atkins Asia Pacific in Hong Kong rising from fourth in the very last session to pip another Atkins team , from Bengaluru in southern India, and an Arup Americas team. The other finalists were from Atkins' office in Gurgaon near New Delhi, and from Interserve in Birmingham.
'Strike while the iron is Mott' (following a long tradition of bad puns in team names) took a strong lead into the finals, and never looked like being caught. The winners put their success down to experience (five of the six in the team had competed in a previous final), meticulous planning and quick decision making.
Participation is recognised by ICE as continuing professional development, and as ICE's vice president for membership (and Loughborough graduate) Adrian Coy told participants at the dinner on the penultimate day of the finals, the 25 years of Merit have produced 25,000 participants and some 40,000 CPD days.
Senior vice president Sir John Armitt presented the ICE silver salver to the winning team, together with a cheque from the Chartered Institute of Building. A further cheque from the Construction Industry Training Board went to the runners up, and Atkins won this year's sponsor's award.
'Self-belief is very important in business' said Armitt after presenting the prizes. 'I am getting to the end of my career, you are at the start. You'll always remember this event. I'm sure it will help you. Now you can go back to your businesses, fired up and full of self-belief!
 The 'Amazing' team from Atkins Asia Pacific which came from fourth to second in the final round to take the runners-up prize. From left: Mandy Chea, Philippa Halton, James Wong, Robert Huang, Olivia Li and Daniel Wu. |
 Dimitrius Narchos from New York (left) and Marianna Minitti from Sao Paolo (right) from Arup Americas' team, with four others competing remotely from New York (on screen, centre). |