Waikato secondary education can take a bow with Morrinsville student Craig Piggott winning the Maintenance Engineering Society of New Zealand’s 2013 Engineering Scholarship. Craig was presented with his scholarship, a $5000 grant towards education in maintenance engineering, at the 2012 National Maintenance Engineering Conference in Rotorua in November in front of an audience of 140 New Zealand engineers.
The Maintenance Engineering Society is a technical group of IPENZ, the Institute of Professional Engineers. One of their many activities is to support and develop engineers, including encouraging career development with the annual Engineering Scholarship. Applications were received nationally from budding engineers and trades people at varying stages of their education and careers. The standard was extremely high, with some staggering academic achievements and glowing testimonials. Craig, a St Peters School senior student, outshone national applicants demonstrating a mix of academic, practical and attitude characteristics that saw a unanimous decision from the judges. According to MESNZ Scholarship Coordinator Bill Sole, “The standard of applicants was extremely high and encouraging across the board. Not one applicant was omitted in the first round and all applicants can be assured we were highly impressed with their records and their engineering intentions. However, in Craig we saw a mix of skills, endeavour and achievements that gives us great confidence he will make a fantastic engineer.”
Craig’s intends studying engineering at either Auckland or Canterbury University, a goal simplified with scholarship funding. As well as receiving his scholarship, Craig was able to spend the day at the national conference meeting engineers and suppliers as well as being inspired by Bill Buckley, the iconic Kiwi founder of the New Zealand based global electro-magnet suppler Buckley Systems and World Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.
Aside from his studies, Craig’s many interests include squash, mini-stock racing, and building and maintaining his own projects. He is currently restoring his own V8 HQ Holden.
