Historical information

The Pitman Benjamin Prize for Engineering Sustainability is awarded to the Civil Engineering student whose thesis best promotes sustainable engineering. It is awarded in memory of a Heather Pitman, the first woman to graduate in Engineering at Ballarat. The Pitman Benjamin Prize for Engineering Sustainability is sponsored by Benjamin Real Estate, and was first awarded in 2006.

Heather was the first female graduate from Ballarat College of Advanced Education and obtained outstanding results. Throughout her career she worked predominantly in local government and for much of that time with the Shire of Ballarat, then the City of Ballarat. During that time she worked as a civil engineer and in planning. Heather was a trail blazer in many respects and was one of the first women to be employed into an engineering position at that time. It was not easy, and she applied for about 200 jobs before being employed by the Shire of Greensborough, north of Melbourne. In 2002 Heather Pitman was Land Development Engineer with the City of Ballarat. The following year she was the City of Ballarat's Manager, Building & Assets.

Award sponsor Terry Benjamin was a great mentor of Heather’s sponsoring the award in her memory when she died suddenly at the age of 48.

Physical description

Honour Board, gold lettering University of Ballarat. Black lettering The Pitman Benjamin Prize for Engineering Sustainability.
The Pitman Benjamin Prize for Engineering Sustainability has been awarded to:
* 2006 - Nathan Whittle;
* 2007 - Christopher Quinn;
* 2008 - Vinoch Ravi;
* 2009 - Troy Vanberkel;
* 2010 - Nil;
* 2011 - Craig Furniss;
* 2012 - Joshua Handreck;
* 2013 - Matthew Willis (not on board 10/6/2014);
* 2013 - Daniel Camilleri (not on board 10/6/2014);