MEET THE BOSS: Sharon Van Kempen. General Manager Prime Traffic Solutions

MEET THE BOSS

SHARON VAN KEMPEN General Manager, Prime Traffic Solutions

Some people think traffic management is simple, that you just get in, get the job done and get out,” says Sharon van Kempen. “Our clients know that Prime will ensure traffic and pedestrian flows around work sites are safe and effective. We are ISO accredited for quality, safety and environment.”

The General Manager adds: “We like to think we are taking the worry out of traffic management. Let us do that bit and you worry about what you have to do. We pride ourselves in offering a very high standard of service. We are honest, reliable, transparent, and we make seemly impossible things happen.”

“We like to think we are taking the worry out of traffic management. Let us do that bit and you worry about what you have to do.”

The traffic management industry has highs and lows when things can get ‘really quiet’. Prime Traffic Solutions currently has 80 people on the books in SA and 6 in the office. It has been like that for some time – quite stable. And something Sharon is ‘quite proud of’ is that approximately 70 percent of the staff has been with Prime for 5 or more years despite a transient, come-and-go workforce.

This writer spoke to her at the company’s Edwardstown premises on her return from a family holiday, her first four-week block of leave since leaving school in in 1986. She

has had more than 20 years’ experience in administration and customer service.

Previous roles have involved customer account management, periodical distributions, product order placement and distribution, inventory and account reconciliations. Working in and on the business is how she describes her role as GM at Prime Traffic Solutions.

She tells me: “Prime has been fortunate over the past 11 years to have been involved in the Gallipoli Underpass, Coast to Coast Light Rail, Southern Expressway Duplication, Adelaide Railway Revitalisation works, various major pipeline projects, the Torrens to Torrens Upgrade, and more recently, the Gawler Rail Electrification project.

“It is quite unbelievable when we stop and think what we have worked on over the years. It is always a wow moment for me. Although these are fantastic projects to be involved in, we also value and pride ourselves on maintaining a high level of service for our day-to-day clients while on these projects.

“Projects come and go but it is the smaller businesses and everyday works that keep the industry going. We have offered traffic management to the film industry since we started. We have worked on various TV advertisements and mini-series such as Rain Shadow, Wanted, Gallipoli, Wolf Creek and reality TV shows such as My Kitchen Rules and House Rules.

“We have offered traffic management to the film industry since we started.”

“That involvement has included major film productions such as the Wolf Creek movies, Jungle Boys, Rabbit, Guilty, Rover, Red Dog, Hotel Mumbai, and Storm Boy, just to name a few. It is an industry very different from the civil and construction industry, with different types of requirements and people. It mixes things up a bit and it is quite interesting to see how a production gets put together.”

If you had a wish list, what would the main ones be? “I would like to see the changes that are being looked at within the industry at the moment come to fruition. By raising the standard across the board, it will improve the industry and the safety of all stakeholders within roadworks.”

Written by John Satterley