The Star: June 06, 2019
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong> Thursday <strong>June</strong> 6 <strong>2019</strong><br />
16<br />
OUR PEOPLE – AXEL WILKE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Axel that keeps Chch moving<br />
FUTURE: Axel Wilke became a transport engineer to<br />
save himself from going “crazy” working at his parents<br />
supermarket in Germany. PHOTO: MARTIN HUNTER<br />
With a name like Axel Wilke, it was only natural the transport consultant’s career would<br />
involve cars, bikes, buses, scooters and skateboards. He speaks to Julia Evans about his<br />
midlife crisis at 24-years-old and the time he royally messed up an intersection<br />
How did you get into the<br />
transport field?<br />
I had my midlife crisis when<br />
I was 24. What happened to<br />
me, I was running my parents<br />
supermarket and had been<br />
doing that for a few years and I<br />
was just absolutely bored. I was<br />
not doing anything with my<br />
brain and I was so frustrated.<br />
It was actually quite funny. We<br />
belonged to a chain, half of the<br />
people running supermarkets<br />
were owner/operators, and every<br />
couple of weeks, 300 of us from<br />
the northern region would come<br />
together and spend an afternoon<br />
together. What I wasn’t quite<br />
sure about was whether you had<br />
to be crazy in order to do this<br />
job long-term or whether doing<br />
this job long-term turned you<br />
crazy. Either way, I didn’t want to<br />
find out. So what I did with my<br />
midlife crisis is I decided I needed<br />
to study something and so one<br />
of my really core interests was<br />
sustainable transport. I was mad<br />
in that area, so I thought, why<br />
don’t I just study that? I asked<br />
around and I was told you have<br />
to become a civil engineer for<br />
that. I thought how strange, but<br />
never mind, so I became a civil<br />
engineer. I was halfway through<br />
my degree when my girlfriend<br />
said she was going to move back<br />
to New Zealand. She was a Kiwi.<br />
She’s not in the picture any longer.<br />
Anyway I was halfway through<br />
my degree and I visited her here<br />
over Christmas and checked out<br />
the universities. At Canterbury,<br />
they said I could finish my degree<br />
here, not a problem. I graduated<br />
from Canterbury in 1997. A few<br />
years later I went back and did my<br />
masters at Canterbury.<br />
But you never finished your<br />
PhD?<br />
When I finished my masters,<br />
my lecturer tried really hard to<br />
talk me into carrying on with<br />
a PhD and I said “yeah, nah.”<br />
After uni I started my first job at<br />
Christchurch City Council and I<br />
was there for eight years. While I<br />
was doing my masters, I was parttime<br />
at the city council still and<br />
went back full-time afterwards.<br />
I absolutely loved my job and<br />
I couldn’t see taking another<br />
three or four years out to study<br />
something full-time. I thought<br />
there’s more fun to be had by<br />
actually getting my hands dirty<br />
and doing stuff.<br />
Did your love of transport<br />
start as a child?<br />
In terms of what I played with<br />
as a kid, it was Lego. I loved going<br />
to my grandparents. <strong>The</strong>y had a<br />
bed seat, you put the seat up and<br />
underneath there was a big box<br />
of Lego. I played with it for hours,<br />
that was the engineer in me. But I<br />
guess I’ve been into cycling since<br />
I started just getting from A to<br />
B when I was five like any kid. I<br />
biked to school 2.5km when I was<br />
in primary school.<br />
Where in Germany are you<br />
from?<br />
I’m from the north-west – the<br />
biggest big city is Hanover. That’s<br />
where I was actually living for a<br />
few years, once as a kid and once<br />
as a young adult. <strong>The</strong> rest of the<br />
time I was living in a tiny village<br />
of less than 3000 people called<br />
Exter.<br />
So you came to Christchurch<br />
following love?<br />
Yes, then I fell in love with<br />
Christchurch. I ditched my<br />
girlfriend – that didn’t really last<br />
that long. Never mind, but the<br />
other love has endured. I came<br />
here and that was it. All of the<br />
rest of my family lives nicely<br />
in Germany, just in one spot<br />
actually. All close together.<br />
But you’re married now?<br />
I am. She’s a Kiwi. How we met<br />
is a funny story all right. We went<br />
tramping in about 1999/2000<br />
and tramped around Mt Fyffe in<br />
Kaikoura. •Turn to page 18<br />
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