Steve has been intimately involved in the asset management planning industry from the mid 1990's through developing some of the first infrastructure asset management plans seen in New Zealand to bringing together an Auckland regional forum on property asset management.

The interest in asset management started from his early days working as a civil/structural engineer combined with experience as a research & development engineer for a commercial building manufacturer. This provided an insight to how applying smart design principles could dramatically influence the long term lifecycle costs of buildings and their associated equipment.

Academic achievements include a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil), a New Zealand Certificate of Engineering, and various post grad papers on financial and strategic management.

Through 2002 to 2004 Steve worked within the Social housing industry in the United Kingdom based on the SPM Auckland office. This work provided evidence to support the 30 year business plans required for the stock transfers from Local Government to social housing organisations. Steve used the knowledge to help a number of other NZ organisations gain a greater understanding of their housing stock and future financial requirements.

Being involved in the writing of international guidelines on asset management has been one of the highlights of Steve's career. These guidelines were written based on experience gained through evolving and applying infrastructural and property principles over the past 15 years. Many of these are now included in the International Infrastructure Manual (IIMM), the NAMS Property manual, Australia's Practice Note on Building Condition & Performance Assessments and the Health Asset Management Guidelines.

Developing asset management planning principles for the health industry in New Zealand has been another highlight. Working alongside the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards has resulted in a set of tools that will change the way health care assets are managed and planned in New Zealand over the coming years. This has been a result of dedicated personal involvement in the industry from 2003 onwards - good things take time.

In early 2001, Steve parted with a large NZ consultancy to setup SPM Consultants. Steve and Chris Jenkins had a vision to more actively provide tools and advice to the asset management industry. The vision was based on ‘simplifying asset management' through developing and using smart software applications supported by smart people. Eight years later, and the vision is being realised across Australasia, United Kingdom and starting to make an impact in the United Arab Emirates.

From early 2007, Steve has been working with a number of Australia's State Government organisations including RailCorp, Housing New South Wales, and Sydney Water. Much of the work has been to established information management strategies to gain information on the extent and quality of their asset base so that SPM's software applications could analyse and report both short to long term expenditure needs.

Over this time Steve has created a strong client base in Australia and New Zealand to support the first branch office of SPM located in Sydney. Recent Australian work gained and coordinated by Steve includes financial modeling of Public Private Partnerships, which is a natural extension of the asset management planning solutions developed by Steve over the past few years.

Steve is SPM's Managing Director and acting General Manager of the Australian branch, SPM Consultants Pty Ltd. He and his family moved to Sydney in March 2009 with the intention of increasing SPM's presence in the Australian asset management planning industry including PPPs, Local Government property, health services, State Government organisations and commercial organisations.

"Asset management planning is a challenging process to grasp. To move your thinking from operational day-to-day activities, to long term strategic thinking, takes time coupled with mentored experience. Today's Asset Manager needs to have a multi disciplinary approach based on understanding of finance, strategy, engineering and information technology. No one said it would be easy but it is enjoyable when it all comes together and you really start making a difference to the way an organisation is run."