Marty Skiadas (BE’96) is a Worrorra mob and Walmajarri man from Derby in the Kimberleys and is the first Aboriginal person to have received a UWA engineering degree.
Working at BHP for over 10 years, Mr Skiadas has held a variety of roles across industry, including maintenance, high voltage utilities, rail and port engineering.
In his current position, as an Electrical and Control System Engineer, he governs and stewards technical aspects of electrical railway systems.
Within the pathway to the sector, it has been clear to Mr Skiadas, that while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people represent 3.2% of the population, 0.5% represent the total of engineering students in Australia*.
“In 28 years as an electrical engineer, I have spent most of my career without seeing any Aboriginal people in engineering,” Mr Skiadas said. “It has been me, one Aboriginal, in a room of non-indigenous people.”
“That has only changed in the last three years, where I have begun working with other indigenous people in my vicinity or team.”
As a descendant of the Worrorra people, Mr Skiadas is inspired to bring more indigenous people into engineering, which drives him to mentor Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
“We need Aboriginal people in Engineering, because engineers create the physical infrastructure that we live our lives in, they create all the roads, buildings, cars, planes, trains, and power lines,” Mr Skiadas said.
“A lot of people will turn their water tap on and water comes out, as though it’s not the marvel that it actually is. There is so much engineering that goes into something like tap water.
“So by not participating in this creation of infrastructure, Aboriginal people are less of a stakeholder in what the infrastructure is.
“If we Aboriginal people could design and build our own houses, not only would there be less of a shortage of houses, but there would be less of a need to talk to a politician and say we need more housing.”
Recently elected as a Polly Farmer Foundation Board member, joining a 90% Aboriginal board, Mr Skiadas regularly visits the Foundation’s STEM primary school programs in Hedland, where he encourages students to consider careers in engineering and science.
During Engineering Challenge week, he spoke to the students about his role at BHP and pathways to enter the engineering profession while they worked in small groups to complete a series of engineering challenges to test their design skills and knowledge with the focus on teamwork and problem solving.
As a mentor to Aboriginal youth, Mr Skiadas reflected on this year’s NAIDOC theme For Our Elders.
“The elders are central to Aboriginal lore and culture,” Mr Skiadas said.
“For the Elders, to me, means that we should listen to the elders, we should help the elders get the people back on country, protecting and caring for the land and sacred sites.
“The Elders should be central to decision making in communities and not ignored because they are older.”
Cover banner image: tidal water branches in mud plains at Derby, Western Australia