SALT Turns 5

This April, we celebrated five years of producing high quality traffic engineering solutions for the great state of Victoria. Founding director James Brownlie reflects on how far SALT has come.
For those of you who don’t know, SALT began as Sustainable Transport Surveys (STS). For three years, I was based in East Gippsland and operated under the name STS.

In 2014, I decided it was time for a shake-up.
(Now SALT director) Jo Garretty and I first met at Grogan Richards in 2003. Over the next decade, I had the privilege of working closely with her on a series of high profile projects. Over the years, I had witnessed exceptional demonstrations of expertise, work ethic and leadership. So in 2014, Jo was the obvious (and only) choice to bring on board to expand the business. And in July 2014, Jo was introduced as a company director.
In line with our new growth strategy, it also made sense to refresh the company image. We modernised our look and logo, opened another office in Fitzroy (Melbourne) and made the official switch from STS to SALT.

Why SALT?
In short, it’s an acronym of our four core company values: Service, Approachability, Loyalty and Transparency. As our team expands, both Jo and I like to think that we embed the ‘SALT’ mindset into every project and in every new employee. These four values are at the forefront of our every working relationship.
The orange in the SALT logo is also a humble reminder of how far we’ve come. It’s a nod of respect to Grogan Richards and the invaluable mentorship received from traffic engineering pioneer Des Grogan.

What’s next?
2015 was another year of big growth. In January, we relocated from our small Fitzroy office to the larger East Melbourne office we now call home. We also began our waste engineering department, led by Waste Associate Maree Marshall. Even though Jo and I have been in the traffic engineering industry for over 30 years combined, new perspectives on planning and engineering still excite us.

The growth hasn’t stopped in 2016. To support our expanding consulting team, we’ve grown our marketing and administration team. Earlier this year, we also founded the SALT Undergraduate Program to nurture up-and-coming young engineering talent. And just recently, we’ve opened another two new offices (one in Sydney, one in Auckland).
I can’t wait to see where we take SALT next.
– James

At SALT we provide a range of services including traffic modelling, environmentally sustainable design, and more. Contact us today for more info!