The Civil Engineering Contractor July 2019 | Page 28

PROFILE
Piling legend
likes to get his
hands dirty
Nico Maas, founder and CEO of Gauteng Piling on his latest project
By Eamonn Ryan
One of the early
pioneers of piling
and geotechnical
engineering in South
Africa is Nico Maas,
CEO of Gauteng’s
second-largest piling
company, Gauteng
Piling. He has almost
45 years’ experience
at the rockface of what
is one of the most
demanding trades in
civil engineering.
26 | CEC July 2019
T
he understanding of piling
and foundation is difficult
to obtain from textbooks or
classrooms and therefore, a lot of
training is derived from such early
pioneers of piling in South Africa,
and a number of today’s technical
people were personally mentored by
Maas. He retired from piling in 2010,
but resumed the helm of Gauteng
Piling in 2017 when his son emigrated
to Australia. He’s rebuilding the
company with a view to selling it —
when that happens the changing of the
guards in this industry will truly have
happened.
Piling engineers are notorious
for having the tempers of a wild
dog, and Maas admits to having been
occasionally “a bit short tempered”,
especially with clients who insist
on understanding his work “to the
last detail. Being short tempered is
the one thing that I regret, as well
as being in a hurry to get things
done. Often time spent listening and
planning better would have saved
time and money. Mistakes are a way
of learning, and although I have made
many mistakes, most of them helped
me to be a better person. If you’re
not making mistakes in life, you’re
not even trying anything. As to other
mistakes I’ve made, I’ll have to check
with my wife!”
From 1969 to 1974 Maas studied
at the University of Pretoria reading
a BSc Eng. (Civ). In 1976 he started
his career working in Grinaker’s
piling division, spending a stint of
20 years, during which he rose to
director level before leaving in 1995
to start his own business, Gauteng
Piling. He was never an office-bound
engineer: “Being a farm boy, I enjoy
working outside and to get my hands
dirty.” Early in his career working on
remote sites doing projects such as
oscillator piles gave him considerable
experience in handling adverse
and difficult piling conditions. This
included working long hours, in
rivers, piling through obstructions
and far away from the office.
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