It was time spent orienteering with her father around Vancouver Island as a teenager that seeded Megan Costello’s love of the outdoors.

 

She’s come a long way since then (both physically and metaphorically) currently in the role of Ernslaw One’s Engineering Manager for the Gisborne region, overseeing road construction, harvest planning and resource consents. In between the paperwork she manages to supervise crews and contractors and tackles health and safety, not to mention being mother to two girls and inaugural winner of the 2019 Eastland Wood Council Gough Women in Forestry Award.

 

What spurs her on? “It’s the problem-solving nature of the work,” says Megan, “doing something practical and hands-on, using a combination of experience and intuition to solve an issue.”

 

Asked about the award, Megan says though she was honoured and it felt like “an accumulation of the effort I’ve put in throughout my career”, it’s the fact that it highlights that there are women in the industry that are contributing that is most important.

 

Eastland Wood Council’s Kim Holland agrees, saying this is the first year the Council has had an award that acknowledges women in the forestry industry, and there was a high calibre of entries.

 

“Megan is passionate about the industry, and also about promoting career pathways for young women. She readily involves herself in any forest industry careers days such as the Careers EXPO, and takes time to speak to girls at Gisborne Girls High School,” says Kim....

 

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