Meet The Team: Zack Wells, Technical Co-Ordinator

Meet Zack, our Technical Co-Ordinator. Whilst the majority of our Kemp team are based around the Southwest Zack can be found working anywhere across the UK travelling around in his campervan.

Zack found his love for the industry during work experience at school with a local civil engineering contractors ‘Bridge Civil Engineering’. “They did so well to give a youngster a broad experience of what the job entailed.” Zack shared.

Zack went on to study civil engineering at college, before completing a degree in Civil Engineering. Looking back, Zack shares that the apprenticeship scheme would have been beneficial to him, giving a combination of hands-on experience simultaneously alongside the theory side. As well as much less debt!

After Uni, with the ethos of working from the Ground Up, Zack worked for a Groundworks company, getting hands on experience. After a few years of groundworks, he went into a Civil and Structural Engineering Consultancy based in Exeter. “This computer work really smoothed out my rough ground working hands! Here I worked on the Highway, External Works & Drainage designs.”

“In 2019 I had a quarter life crisis and left to head up to live in London. No Job and sofa surfing at a friend’s until I ended up getting a job in a Bar in Clapham, awesome job… that was up until Covid. My covid job was a Waitrose delivery driver, driving the streets of central London when it was in lockdown, an experience I won’t get again (Hopefully).”

Missing the open space and rolling Devon hills, Zack returned to his southwest routes and went back to Design work, however fancied a change from sole computer-based work which is where Kemp came in.

Zack wanted a job that was part office/CAD work and part site based. Setting out/Surveying was spot on for that. He had seen many surveys from Kemp being at the consultancy, and Zack shared “Kemp in my head was ‘the’ place to go to for setting out engineering. I had a search around, and honestly, me being a millennial, judged the companies by their social media presence and website, Kemp was professional and showed the job potential through that.”

Zack joined the team in May 2022 as a Setting out Technician, working on a variety of different jobs including, Highway Improvements, Housing Developments & Sewer requisition works to name a few. Some of which he had played a part in the design work back when working in the consultancy.

In the last year or so Zack has transitioned to the role of a Technical Coordinator for Kemp. Dealing with an assortment of data and drawings that come in for the multiple sites we are working on. Ensuring the designs correlate with each other Zack extracts data from CAD so our engineers on-site have the correct information to set out from. “I love the fact that this job is essentially a puzzle I’m trying to solve each day. Any difficult problems that arise, you’ve got the backing of a great team at Kemp, who will help with their different experience and skills.”

Some of our clients have invested in Machine Control, part of Zack’s job is to produce the 3D models for Roads, Drainage and Plots “I tell my friends I create the roads for a Sat Nav the Digger Drivers follow. Incredible to think that GNSS based machine control can locate an excavator bucket to an accuracy of about 20mm.”

In the time-constrained and deadline-driven industry, especially with housing developments, Zack has observed from a top-down perspective how time pressures often lead to essential design flaws that are only identified once construction is underway. As the final step before years of planning and design work are realised on-site, Kemp understand the critical importance of thorough checks. By dedicating the necessary time to this process, this has saved our clients thousands of pounds and countless hours of labour-intensive remediation work... “As money is a time and time is money, an adaption of John Ruskin quote is very fitting for Kemps attitude.”

‘It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that's all.’

When asking what life outside of work looks like for Zack he shared, “Outside of work, I love finding good walks, with a pub, with good grub. My girlfriend and I have a converted campervan, so travelling around the UK finding these new spots ideal. Weve also invested in Foldup Brompton Electric Bikes to get about exploring quicker. I do feel sorry for my partner when I take her on a diversion to a see a development I put my hand too, be it solely on CAD or onsite work. I tell her ‘I built that’.

I hate feeling like a tourist! Or as the Cornish call an emmet! So places which aren’t tourist hotspots is perfect for me. Also, I can’t just sit around or laze by a pool or beach, I must be doing something, something on by bucket list is to go skiing. I do still feel I haven’t yet explored the UK to its full extent, I really want head up North and experience the NC500 in Scotland.”