When Vicki Carter walks into the Cushman & Wakefield office in Hamilton, her work mates jokingly duck under their desks. They’ve affectionately dubbed her their “little hurricane”, a testament to the fizz and passion she brings to facilities management.
But behind the banter lies genuine respect for Vicki, a proud second-generation New Zealander with Indian and Scottish heritage and deserved recipient of a Foundation scholarship.
“My mum used to say, if you don’t make it in your twenties, make it in your thirties. If you can’t make it in your thirties, make it in your forties,” Vicki explains, with the same enthusiasm and energy that defines her approach to FM. Many may have hesitated to undertake a career-boosting university education while being solely responsible for household income, but not Vicki.
“This is my vibe. This is my jam,” she declares about facilities management.
Vicki manages clients including Waikato District Council and Fonterra. She drove the RFP for the district council’s Huntly pool’s groundbreaking boiler-to-heat-pump conversion, an EECA-funded project that slashed quarterly electricity costs by over $100,000. “The cost saving is phenomenal, and for the ratepayers in the community, that’s massive stuff for me.”
But it’s the people that truly fuel Vicki’s passion, from introducing students from Hamilton Boys High and Ngāruawāhia High School to FM’s career possibilities, to visiting locals who have looked after community facilities for decades. “Thank you so much,” one said. “It feels like you’re the only one that cares.”
Her colleagues noticed too. When Vicki was nominated for FMANZ Emerging Facilities Manager of the Year, an engineer who rarely speaks up pulled her aside to say, “Your hard work, your emails from 6 in the morning till 6 at night…You are really good at your job, and you deserve that.”
The Foundation’s scholarship helped with the tuition fees for her Diploma in Facilities Management at Massey University. “That accounting paper I questioned? Now I understand CapEx and OpEx budgets. The workplace management paper? I can see those strategies in Fonterra’s new offices.” These lessons will, Vicki hopes, support her long-term aspiration to move into senior management.
The sacrifices have been real. Weekends studying, a delayed Europe trip, a 3000-word essay over Easter weekend.
But Vicki’s advice to future Foundation applicants is clear: “It has been life changing. There will be some things that you have to sacrifice, but you will reap the benefits.”
With the Foundation’s support removing financial obstacles, Vicki proves that passion, and determination, can unlock potential at any stage.
