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10/02/2009
Thandi Mfenqa
Quentin Hurt
Thandi's Graduation Day
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From dust to gloryThere’s no telling just how far guts and determination will take a person. Take Thandi Mfenqa, for example. In 1998, Thandi started working as a temp at leading environmental inspection and monitoring company Ecoserv, working 14 hours a week at their Durban office. Thandi’s attitude to her work – even though it was performing menial tasks like cleaning and running to the shops – so impressed her boss Quentin Hurt that he offered to sponsor her to study a three-year chemical engineering diploma at Durban University of Technology. The rest, as they say, is history – and Thandi has streaked a career path from office cleaner to Johannesburg manager in no less than 10 years. “Once I had completed my studies in 2002, I started working full time at Ecoserv,” Thandi recalls. “I worked as a trainee consultant before progressing to a junior consultant, where I had my first taste of working on projects on my own.” One of Thandi’s proudest achievements at that point was initiating a new monitoring project in Mozambique. “It was groundbreaking work and was one of my greatest achievements. I performed all the tests on my own and only got help from the senior consultant when the time came to compile reports on my findings.” If Ecoserv had not already noted Thandi’s potential, it was impossible to ignore it from that point on. “But I knew I could do even better and was determined to prove it,” Thandi says. In March 2004, Thandi was promoted to trainee manager of Annegarn Environmental Research (AER), a newly-acquired division of Ecoserv. AER is the biggest service provider of dust monitoring services in SA, counting among its customers significant mines and factories, such as the new Vaal coallery, Anglo Gold Ashanti and Crust. “In April I moved up to Johannesburg to begin work at AER. The challenges were huge, not least of which was resistance to change from existing staff members. But we worked through it and now the AER team is even stronger than ever,” Thandi says. AER has grown considerably under Thandi’s guidance, with many
new clients being brought into the fold. She put her diploma to good
use, managing the day to day operations for her clients, performing
dust fallout and PM10 monitoring, ambient gas monitoring and communicating
with clients amongst many other duties. And while the future looks rosy, Thandi can’t help but pay tribute to her boss, Quentin, for transforming her life. “I am very fortunate that I have had support from Quentin throughout my career at Ecoserv. I was the first black person that he sponsored and with his help I not only have a diploma in chemical engineering but have also attended other businesses courses that have helped me hone my management skills. It is all very well to have potential, but if no one recognizes you, it is very difficult to succeed,” she concludes. For more information contact: .
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