INTERVIEW | MIKE BURTON MIKES ON A MISSION CIBSEs current Building Performance Engineer of the Year, Mike Burton, wants to ensure everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential as a building services engineer, whatever their background. Alex Smith reports Its good to be mentored by those who are not exactly in your profession, because it gives you a different perspective M ike Burton FCIBSE, CIBSEs Building Performance Engineer of the Year, has set a high bar for those seeking to win the crown at next months awards. As well as leading project teams on significant buildings such as the White Collar Factory, BBC Broadcasting House and the Institute of Physics HQ, Aecoms director of building engineering has authored industry publications, and fostered equality and career support for engineers. Burton joined the CIBSE Council in 2022 and will be sitting on the CIBSE Board from this May. He is also director at the British Council for Offices (BCO) Board of Management, chair of the National BCO Awards, and a RIBA Regional Awards juror. CIBSE judges commended Burton for his knowledge and experience and, during the interview process, remarked on his determination to inspire early career engineers with the attainments and successes of his predecessors. He spoke so passionately of his work with new entrants into the industry and how he can instil in them a sense of purpose and understanding, noted the judges. They also praised his outreach work with primary and secondary schools, where he promotes building services through creative engineering exercises and mock work-experience sessions. No STEM ambassadors visited the schools Burton attended in Purley, South London, and he was unaware of the building services profession as he was growing up. Like lots of people, I didnt really 22 February 2023 www.cibsejournal.com know building services engineering existed. However, I loved art, design and technology, and architecture, and I was pretty good at maths and physics, says Burton. It was in his sixth form, when he was studying maths, physics, art and graphical communication, that a teacher first suggested he look at building engineering. I decided that structural and civil engineering wasnt for me, but I found this degree at Leeds called architectural engineering, which had the attraction of one years study at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Soon after Burton started the degree, he knew hed made the right decision. There were a lot of like-minded people there interested in art and architecture, he says. Peers included Buro Happold group director Tanya Ross, Arup sustainable development lead Nigel Tonks and Eckersley OCallaghan associate director Mitsu Edwards. The year at Penn was an eye-opener, says Burton. You were lectured by experts in their field. They were designing the tallest building in Chicago, lighting the Guggenheim Museum, and putting huge ventilation plant in the largest hospital in the world. Burton saw developments in engineering and lighting that were unheard of in the UK at the time, and it made a lasting impression. When I came back to the UK, I knew I wanted to do something in holistic building design, he remembers. His first graduate position was at Oscar Faber, which eventually morphed into Aecom after the engineering giant bought Oscar Faber to become Faber Maunsell in 2002. Burton says he found a very supportive culture. I was very lucky that I grew up in a really good training organisation though, of course, you dont realise this at the time. It was part of the culture of Oscar Faber to mentor and train young engineers, apprentices and graduates, and Burton says senior engineers such as