When Grady Cameron first started out in his career, he was given some advice he has always remembered.
He was told that while it was very easy to run a company in the good times, the true test of a leader was during times of adversity.
Mr Cameron (39) is upfront when he acknowledges there have been plenty of challenges, which were ''pretty testing'' on both the organisation and himself personally.
They have included the loss of 120 jobs at Delta, following the decision to exit the civil construction market. Together with previous redundancies in Central Otago, the company has shed almost 150 workers since the middle of last year.
Since 2012, the company has lost at least $6.4 million on property purchases at Jacks Point and Luggate, while there was also Aurora's $139 million network reinvestment plan, which would see its debt increase by $38.2 million while its dividend dropped $2 million a year.
Mr Cameron acknowledged that when he started in the dual roles in January 2009, he went into the job ''with rose-tinted glasses'' - ''and they were quite quickly taken off''.
But through the adversity, Delta had come out in a much stronger position and that was really positive, he said.
Mr Grady was proud to receive the Young Energy Executive of the Year award on behalf of the organisation.
''For me, the award was more a reflection and recognition of the hard work and passion of our people and the great work that they do. It was really nice for the organisation, having gone through some challenges, to get some positive recognition.
''At the end of the day, it's easy to be a leader in an organisation when times are good. When you really stand up as a leader is when times are tough,'' he said.
The first thing required to get through adversity was to have ''really good people'' and the business was made up of people who were passionate, hard-working and dedicated, who loved making a difference and were very proud of what they did.
It was also about trying to give people a vision of where the organisation was going and, while going through adversity, communicate how it was going to get through it.
Mr Cameron said he worked on some ''really basic values'' of honesty, integrity and trust, along with treating people as he would like to be treated himself.
''We can make leadership and business management really complicated but it comes down to some really core values, how we treat each other, respect and communication,'' he said.
Throughout ''all the trials and tribulations'', there had also been many highlights as the organisation continued to grow and develop, picking up new contracts and work for new customers.
Those highlights included winning the contract to provide technical and tunnel services for Contact Energy's Clutha hydro-electric power stations, securing long-term network maintenance contracts and capital build projects for other [non-Aurora] distribution networks such as Network Tasman, and ''significant'' asset improvement around Otago-Southland.
New processes, tools, systems and ways of thinking had been brought in and the benefits of some of the decisions made over the last few years were now being seen.
''Whilst we've been having some internal turmoil and have had to make some tough decisions, externally we've continued to deliver to our customers,'' Mr Cameron said.
That was a reflection of the passion, hard work and commitment of the team. He believed the future was exciting and he hoped some young future engineers and leaders could be inspired to move into the sector to continue to provide innovative and smart thinking.
What was previously seen as ''a little bit old-school and boring'' was becoming ''sexy and exciting'' and it was an area that was going to be continually changing, he said.
Born in Christchurch, Mr Cameron spent his early years on a sheep and beef farm on Banks Peninsula.
The death of his 35-year-old father in a racing car accident when he was 9 was to be life-defining in terms of the future pathway he took.
''I grew up very, very fast. I probably went from nine to 15 in the space of a few days,'' he recalled. Since then, he acknowledged he had probably been on an ''accelerated life path'' and he was on a ''pretty focused path to try and achieve some stuff''.
Educated in Christchurch, Mr Cameron studied electrical engineering at the University of Canterbury, followed by a master's degree in engineering management.
From there, he moved to Auckland and worked for French-based multinational Alstom, initially in a project engineer role but quickly moving into project management.
The job was ''really fascinating'' proving a wonderful grounding for the young engineer.
After three and a-half years, he and his wife, Tracey, whom he met at university, were keen to go on their OE.
The opportunity arose for him to work for Alstom in Paris, which proved ''quite an eye-opener'' for a ''good Kiwi boy off a farm in the South Island suddenly in the middle of Paris''. He spent about a year studying French in night-classes preparing for the move but
admitted his grasp of the language was ''adequate but humorous''.
The job was initially in project management and then the opportunity arose to look after the company's rolling stock maintenance business in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, while still based in Paris.
Living in the French capital was an ''outstanding'' experience, Mr Cameron said.
An opportunity then arose to move to London and run the Jubilee Line and Northern Line fleet on the London Underground.
The couple returned to New Zealand in 2005 for family reasons, moving first to Auckland.
Mr Cameron worked for Transfield Services, predominantly in energy but also telecommunications infrastructure, for just over a year.
That was followed by a move to Christchurch, as the company was keen to spread its senior management presence across the South Island. He was ''pretty keen'' to head back south to his home territory.
In 2008, he was approached about moving to Dunedin and saw the job of chief executive of Delta and Aurora Energy as a ''fantastic opportunity''.
It was in a core sector he had a lot of knowledge and experience in. As an engineer, he liked ''building things'' and liked industries that had a positive influence in the communities they were associated with.
The business, whether it was waste collection and recycling and managing landfills, looking after parks and reserves or making sure lights were kept on and electricity was flowing, touched ''hundreds of thousands'' of lives every day.
Asked about his leadership style, Mr Cameron said he would like to think it was an empowering style and one that encouraged involvement from others.
He was passionate about the business and the region. It was interesting times as far as where the sector was going and there were some challenges with the regulatory environment.
It was very rare that there was a moment of boredom in the job, he said.
Central Otago was a very special region that was going ahead in ''leaps and bounds'' for a range of reasons.
In Dunedin and eastern Otago, there were a ''huge amount'' of opportunities but the challenge for the city was to start focusing on the positives and not dwell on the negatives.
It was about not letting the ''small voice of nay-sayers'' overpower the general feeling of positivity about the city, he said.
Mr Cameron described his own career as being ''a really fun journey''. Part of life was about not taking it too seriously and he enjoyed a joke at work.
''You've still got to be a person and do what you do. You don't change who you are being in a role like this,'' he said.
The Cameron file
Grady Cameron
• Age: 39
• Chief executive of Aurora Energy and Delta since January 2009
• Married to Tracey with two young sons
