The Dunedin man killed while clearing a slip in Fiordland on Friday planned to retire at the end of next year after a long and varied career in infrastructure works.
Elizabeth Brown said her husband Graham (67), a driller for Downer, wanted to mark 40 years in the job before retiring.
Senior Sergeant Dave Raynes, of Invercargill, released Mr Brown's name on Saturday.
He died after sustaining a serious head injury after an incident with a compressed air hose on Milford Rd near the Homer Tunnel, while clearing the slip which had blocked the road.
Married for 46 years, they had two children, Mrs Brown said.
They planned to travel when Mr Brown retired, to Europe, Canada, and Australia. The couple's children both lived in Australia, where the Browns planned to undertake an extended campervan holiday.
They had had a good life, but had unfinished plans, Mrs Brown said.
"It's all been curtailed."
For nearly 50 years, his work had taken him around New Zealand to work on some of the country's big infrastructure projects. His first job was in 1964 on the Manapouri power station, based in Deep Cove on the hostel ship Wanganella. He worked on different phases of that project, including helping build the Lake Te Anau control gates.
He also worked during construction of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. He joined the then Ministry of Works and Development in January 1974, a successor of which was acquired by Downer in the 1990s.
Mr Brown's work took him "all over the place", Mrs Brown said.
Three or four years were spent in the North Island assisting strengthening work on the Arapuni Dam.
Stationed in Duntroon for about a decade, Mr Brown undertook investigative drilling work for two power schemes that did not eventuate.
In the mid-1980s he had two stints in the Antarctic: seconded to the then Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, he first assisted with drilling to find evidence of Gondwanaland, and the next year returned to help install seismic equipment.
This month, he had been assisting with another big infrastructural project, horizontal drilling in Dunedin for superfast broadband, Mrs Brown said.
Mrs Brown said she had huge support from friends and family.
The couple had lived in Dunedin for the past 26 years.
