Winner: Mario Dona
Company: Santos Ltd
Mario Dona’s 35 years experience in design, commissioning and operations of electrical, instrumentation and process control systems has seen him win the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Zenith Award of the year.
Like many other engineers, Dona exhibited quiet humility when told of his win. "I didn’t expect to win," he told PACE. "There are certainly other lifetime achievers who come well before me."
Currently he works as a principal engineer in Power Controls at Santos, and has been working with the company for 28 years. Dona is responsible for provision of independent Power & Controls Engineering services, to ensure appropriate and managed engineering and workflow standards for creation and operation assets are set.
He represents Santos on national and international standards, industry and professional organisations, management of major incident investigations and mentors staff. He has added value to Santos by commissioning major plant control systems with long term stability and minor rework.
This experience was used in later years when the plant control systems were upgraded and the plant had to be rebuilt due to fire damage. Dona has contributed to the wider community by participating in the Standards Australia IT6-006-2 Industrial Process Control and Measurement IEC/AS 16508 & 16511 Functional Safety.
Mario Dona (C) of Santos receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from category sponsors ABB Australia: Alex Jukes (L), Low Voltage Products Business Manager and Adrian Heaton (R), National Marketing Manager – Discrete Automation & Motion.
Throughout the years, Dona has had a pivotal role in many major projects, these include providing technical guidance and engineering approval to progress and close out of the Moomba Plant fire remediation project. Specific tasks included the participation of HAZOP, coordination of CHAZOP, material substitution approval.
By management of internal and external resources, he developed 62 power and controls standards within two years. He also rolled out standards via discipline engineering networks held every quarter.
Dona actively managed discipline network content in terms of content, presenters, and attendees which included regulators, Santos engineering and maintenance, consultants and service providers.
He is a member of several associations including; Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists & Managers Australia, IICA. For ITACS (Internal Testing and Certification Services), Dona is on the appeals committee dealing with certification issues of Hazardous Area Electrical equipment.
Check out all the Finalists in the Lifetime Achievement category.
The 2011 Zenith Lifetime Achievement Award is sponsored by ABB.
ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 124,000 people.