Personality Profile
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RODRIEK MUSHWANA –
LEARNING TO LEAD
By Ntsako Khosa
“Ultimately I want to run the biggest black-owned HVAC
contracting firm.” – Rodriek Mushwana.
odriek N Mushwana is the managing director of MSB
Engineering. He summarises his responsibilities nicely, stating
that he heads projects (owing to the company size) and makes sure
projects are done properly as per engineering requirements.
GETTING STARTED
“During the school holidays I used to work with a refrigeration
technician at my father’s employment,” he recalls. Interestingly
enough, it was through reading RACA Journal in the mid-90s that his
interest in cooling and heating was sparked. “In January 1996 I wrote
a letter to the president of SAIRAC asking for more information on
how one can get involved in the air-conditioning industry. Little did
I know that my letter was tabled at a SAIRAC meeting and the late
Richard Pearce of Richard Pearce and Partners (RPP) offered to give
me a chance.”
By April of the same year, he was employed as a junior computer
aided design (CAD) operator. “Three months later I was promoted
to a CAD operator. I went through the ranks to a position of design
technician by 2004. I wouldn’t have done all this if it wasn’t for the
leadership of Graeme Page. All my years at RPP he was my mentor,
his leadership has placed me where I am now.”
Page then recruited him to WSP where Page was now an office
director. “I worked under him for years doing a lot of projects locally
and regionally,” he says. After Steven Barrett joined WSP as a senior
engineer, Mushwana further increased his industry knowledge. “These
three men contributed a lot to where I am and I owe it to them, not
ignoring the rest of the people I worked with in the industry like
Lindy Lund, George Arnold, Jacob Muabelo, Vivian Shabangu, Jan
Nieuwenhuizen, Sabastian Chakezha and many more.”
FOR THE LOVE OF THE JOB
In 2015 after Page and Barret left WSP to set up Graeme Page
Consulting Engineers (GPCE), restructuring happened at WSP which
led him to decide to move into HVAC contracting. “When I started
MSB Engineering, I didn’t even know who was going to give me the
www.hvacronline.co.za
first project, it was a
leap of faith on my
side. Five years later
I’m still here on pursuit
to be the preferred
HVAC contractor by
reputable consulting
firms and developers.”
He received his
N6 in air-conditioning
and refrigeration
from the old Johannesburg Technical College. He has attended and
completed seven SAIRAC accredited training programmes and
a certificate in hospital planning from the University of KwaZulu-
Natal (UKZN). “I am a member of SARAIC, the South African
Federation of Hospital Engineering (SAFHE) and a SARACCA
approved practitioner to issue air-conditioning certificates of
compliance (COC).”
He finds that what he does is enjoyable, and shares that in
contracting you deal with implementation and not designs. “The
most enjoyable part of my work is commissioning when the
supplier gives a thump up of what we did, seeing what I started
being completed, motivates me even more.”
R
PROJECTS
These are some of the projects Mushwana has worked on under
MSB Engineering:
• Dzanani Police station in Limpopo where he engineered a
mechanical project, • Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS)
control centre for ACSA, and • Mamelodi Clinic
FUTURE PLANS
“The future looks good, even though the industry is getting flooded
with contractors. Ultimately, I want to run the biggest black-owned
HVAC contracting firm,” he says. RACA
RACA Journal I May 2020
47