Grant Faber

He’s also heavily involved in operations and enjoys taking the lead on our digital projects.

When Grant’s father and PSA Engineering founder Ian Faber suggested to his son that he should move to Queensland and take up a leadership role in the company, Grant was immediately interested. While Grant doesn’t come from an engineering background, both he and Ian could see the synergy between Grant’s digital experience and the strategic pivot PSA Engineering would need to take as the industry advanced.

“As automation and control systems engineering is evolving, it’s becoming more and more digital and IT-centric. I see a massive amount of convergence between my expertise and PSA Engineering’s core business.”

Grant has identified IT/OT convergence as a critical space where PSA Engineering delivers optimal outcomes for our clients. As Grant points out, the key to successful digital convergence is understanding the different viewpoints, drivers and risk profiles for both IT and operations and finding ways to bridge that gap.

“When it comes to digital solutions, industrial disciplines lag the mainstream by about a decade. Different sides of the same organisation can have very different viewpoints, and this is where PSA Engineering, with our deep understanding of processes and operations, can add real value.”

Grant sees the team as uniquely placed to bridge the IT/OT gap with. Our years of experience and our specialist knowledge of process control, safety and industrial networking systems enables us to solve the inherent human challenges of IT/OT convergence as well as the technical ones.

Cybersecurity is a perfect example of a specialisation where Grant sees a growing demand for IT/OT convergence.

“We now have security models that describe how to create cybersecurity environments that can be linked to more traditional security models. Our team is particularly skilled at merging those two worlds. We can speak the language on both sides. We have engineers and consultants who can speak that technical language and help both the IT and the operations side of a business work effectively toward a solution.”

At his core, Grant is an innovator, and it’s this side of him that drives his approach to strategy. He sees the future as an opportunity to continually improve. A major driver for him is the environment and sustainability. He’s excited by the growth in renewables and is keen for PSA Engineering to be part of the journey. Coupled with this positivity about the future is a deep respect for the traditional industries and commercial drivers that provided the foundations for PSA Engineering.

“There’s a duality about me. I’m all for the environmental aspects and reducing our carbon footprint, but there’s also the commercial side. I try to find the balance between the two and stay true to my principles as I steer this organisation through that duality. I look at how we can align with Sustainable Development Goals and stay profitable. Front of mind is the fact that as a company, we employ people and those people have families.”

Despite the challenges, it’s a duality that Grant finds intensely rewarding, and he’s looking forward to plotting PSA Engineering’s path forward.

“There’s been so much growth and change since I joined. Seeing our team grow has been really rewarding. We’ve matured so much as a business. We’ve gone through an evolution of extending ourselves into all different industries, and now we’re stepping up the business again. That, to me, is the greatest reward.”

Grant is currently completing his MBA at Griffith University.