Diane Moriarty, cadastral surveyor

When Diane Moriarty was just a young teenager she decided she wanted to work in surveying. Since that time she has made the moves of a quiet achiever to the point that today, at 33, she is a licensed cadastral surveyor employed by Auckland engineering, surveying and planning consultancy Wood and Partners.

A cadastral surveyor is one who establishes accurate identification of boundaries for land tenure purposes and Moriarty’s work is concerned mainly with subdivisions. To become licensed requires a person with an appropriate university degree to undertake certain projects and sit a set of exams.

Moriarty says that in her university class of 50-60, seven were women – a large number for that time. However, only four of the seven are now licensed cadastral surveyors, though more women have entered the profession since at a rate of about four per university year.

Moriarty says she has always worked diligently in her chosen field and has found it enjoyable and rewarding. The only aspects she found difficult were the maths papers she did at university. Everything has been not easy but achievable. 

Her interest in surveying began casually but from that point never wavered. As a 14-year-old pupil at Green Bay High School in west Auckland she had to decide what she wanted to do by way of work experience.

“We had to choose something we thought we might be interested in. I’d always liked tech drawing, being outside, and was reasonably good at maths,” she recalls.

“My father suggested surveying so I went along and spent four days with a small surveying company and decided from then on that was what I was going to do.”

Moriarty entered the workforce at 18 as an apprentice. She went to technical college for a year and was then employed on a part-time basis while she finished her technician’s course.

Deciding she wanted more qualifications, she studied at Otago University for three years, was awarded a bachelor degree in surveying, and later went through the cadastral surveying licensing process.

Before joining Wood and Partners in January last year she worked for two other similar companies. She also lived in London for three years, spending only two months on surveying and the rest of the time on town-planning work.

Moriarty regrets but is philosophical that the proportion of outdoor work in her job has decreased in the past two years. 

“It comes with the territory. As you get more qualified you tend to spend more time in the office, overseeing other people and doing design work. The outdoor aspect is still the bit I most enjoy about my job, but now that I’m indoors more I also enjoy doing design work.”

Moriarty is not fazed at working in a male-dominated environment. She says it has caused issues only a few times in her career, and generally she prefers working with males and has received beneficial mentoring from senior male colleagues.

She acknowledges that most companies in the construction and construction-related field have a very male-dominated hierarchy but doubts that she wants to reach that level of management, even though there are women in the surveying profession who have done so.

She adds: “I’m quite happy where I am. Earlier in my career I knew where I wanted to get to. But now I’ve reached that point and I haven’t really decided where I want to head to from here. Probably in a few more years I’ll make that decision.”

Next: Tanya Claxton, excavator operator