Have you always had a knack for history? Studied Ancient or Modern in high school or university? Always the one in your group of friends who stops to look at old buildings in the city and try to find the date it was built? You might find that being a Heritage Advisor suits you!
Spend a day in the life of Ben Calvert and find out what it's like working with heritage listings, what skills he needs to do his thing, and what a typical day on the job looks like.
The typical day for a Heritage Advisor can be quite varied. The role is something of a catch-all descriptor that covers a broad range of disciplines. At a broader level though, our work is about understanding the cultural values of a place and then preparing appropriate recommendations to conserve those values.
In terms of tasks, I might start my morning by writing a history for a Georgian-era house, while in the afternoon I might travel to Mosman to take archival photos of rare industrial equipment. The next day I might be preparing conservation policies for a railway station and then, the day after that, I might be meeting with First Nations groups to discuss incorporating design principles into new structures. It takes time to build up these skills though, and nobody jumps into the deep end right away. When I started, I began by helping with document research and filling spread sheets with artefact data.
I started working in the heritage industry about six years ago. At the time, I applied for the role through Macquarie University’s internship program and after that I was hired as a research assistant. My studies at Macquarie had been in ancient history, so while I could tell you all about the Peloponnesian War and translate some simple Latin phrases, I couldn’t begin to explain to you how Transportation worked or what Georgian-era Architecture looked like. Every day was a huge learning curve. But, eventually, the challenges became more enjoyable and it didn’t take long for me to get hooked.
Hmm, that’s tricky. I’ve had the good fortune to meet and learn from a number of professionals who’ve worked in the field, each with different personalities and a wide variety of skills. I’ve seen that no two people succeed in the same way and those who, at first, seemed unsuitable turned out to be more than capable of delivering fantastic work.
Speaking entirely for myself though, three skills that I’ve come to rely on include:
After doing this job for a few years I’ve learnt that I can become quite stubborn and unyielding when it comes to delivering high-quality work. While that might sound like a good thing, it can mean I forget about the people around me. It’s been a journey to start stepping back from the work and begin putting things into a wider perspective. Nowadays, the most important thing for me is getting to know the people I work with. I try to make a point of stopping what I’m doing and taking a moment to chat with other people in the project.
There have been a lot of good days so far. The feeling of delivering a complex project or winning a big tender is always going to be great but, personally, seeing recommendations I’ve written out being translated into effective real-life outcomes gives me the most satisfaction. One of the best projects I’ve worked on recently came from a collaboration with First Nations people to see positive design outcomes for their community. It was the first time that I’d been involved in a project like this, and it was deeply satisfying to see how the report turned out.
Some projects can seem so large and overwhelming that, at times, you just need to drop everything and dedicate yourself entirely to them. I’ve had projects like this in the past and they can really drain your energy. About a year ago, one of those types of jobs extend out for over six months. I put uni on hold just so I could focus on getting it finished. It was one of the most relieving feelings to finally close it out, but it took me a while to recover. Balancing work life and home life can be challenging during those stretches.
Having a network of people around me, both at home and in the workplace, is important to keeping my work-life balance sustainable. Going on dates with my partner or finding some time to hang out with friends makes it possible for me to enjoy the parts of my life that are dedicated to work. Going for a coffee or after-work drinks has helped me get to know the people I work with better as well. I feel that by making the effort to learn about them, they’ll hopefully make the effort to learn about me.
I think people would be surprised by how varied the job can be… and this is part of what makes it hard to explain over the dinner table. To write heritage reports I’ve needed to develop a familiarity with subjects like history, architecture, urban planning, photography, materials sciences, heritage law, archaeology, and anthropology. And all of that is on top of the general communication and business skills that come with being a consultant. I’ve known people who’ve worked in this industry for over fifteen years who say that they’re still learning. I’ve only been in it for six years and I know I’m still learning. Having said that though, it can be a lot of fun.
At a museum site, we were excavating a courtyard space and uncovered a spoil heap of old artefacts that had been thrown out about fifty years ago. Most of the objects were mundane and included things like broken crockery or scraps of clothing. However, one of the more interesting finds was a set of WW1 German rifles that had fused together into a lump. It turned out that the chemical composition of the soil was so bad that it caused all the barrels to corrode and then concrete together into a single solid mass. At the time, we joked about gifting the guns back to the museum, not as artefacts, but instead as some type of modern art installation.
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