Sometimes all it takes is one person to buy into your dream. Tania Seeger learned this valuable lesson 23 years ago when a GIBB team member took her under her wing and helped her fly.

Born and bred in East London, Tania spent a lot of time with her father. He was a sports shooter, and she spent Saturdays at the shooting range with him from the age of 9. He allowed her to start shooting - under his supervision - when she turned 12 and she also spent a lot of time in his workshop, moulding bullets from scratch and cleaning guns, sparking her interest in mechanics.In her teenage years, Tania participated in every cultural and sporting activity she could at school. “Growing up in a limited-income household (her mother worked for the railways and her father was an electrician for the local municipality), I viewed these activities as an opportunity to find something I was good at so that I could change my situation.” 

In 2001, she secretly applied to UCT to do mechanical engineering. She was provisionally accepted, pending her matric results. When the acceptance letter arrived, her father tossed it aside, saying “who’s going to pay for it?” Tania was devastated. “I applied for bursaries, but nothing came of it. I finally got a job at the Spur Restaurant – somewhat of a tradition for East London teenagers. While having to work as a waiter was a blow to me, it enabled me to live, make connections and pay my own way, which was one step closer towards changing my future.” 

A chance meeting while working at Spur turned out to be the gateway to realising her dream of becoming an engineer. GIBB CAD operator, Alison Smith, frequented Spur while Tania was working there. The two got chatting and Alison asked Tania about her aspirations. “When she heard I was interested in engineering, she offered me the opportunity to spend time at her office to find out about civil engineering and learn to draw. 

“I spent my first three months at GIBB working at the office during the day and at Spur at night. It was exhausting and when Alison left the business after those first three months, I suddenly had to take over the entire role. Luckily there’s a special thing about GIBB’s East London office - they treated me like family and cheered me on.” Tania has had several mentors over the years, from Alison who befriended her at Spur, to Steven Schroeder who recognised her potential. “It took a village to ‘raise’ me, so to speak. In 2004, GIBB agreed to pay for me to study civil engineering at UCT, provided I spent holidays working at the office.”

She graduated with a BSc Eng Civ in 2008 and has since been a stalwart of GIBB’s East London office. Today, she is a Civil Engineer focusing on roads and stormwater systems and remains committed to investing in young go-getters who show potential and a desire to succeed. Having worked predominantly across major projects in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, Tania has built a strong technical foundation in both design office and site-based roles. She has contributed to national and provincial road upgrades, major rehabilitation works, access roads and large-scale geometric improvements. 

Some of the recent projects she has participated in include:

• Assistant Resident Engineer: The rehabilitation of Settlers Way and Penkop Road. 
• Design engineer: Improvement of national route R335 between Motherwell (5.6km) and Addo (37.6km). 
• Design engineer: Upgrade of national route N2 section 18 between Viedgesville (65.6km) and Mthatha (85km).
• Assistant resident engineer: Upgrading the R72 section 3 and section 4 from Port Alfred to Keiskamma River.

Her advice to young people who feel stuck is to find what they are good at, focus on their strengths and invest in those strengths. “Everything will fall into place from there. I love training people and encouraging them to feel good about themselves: sometimes all people need it for one person to believe in them. That’s how it started for me: one person believing in me and giving me a chance.”