Terania Consulting Wins Outstanding New Business Award
Some milestones in business are easy to measure - projects delivered, clients signed, deadlines met. Others are harder to quantify, like the feeling that your work is starting to matter, really matter, to the people around you.
When Terania Consulting was named Outstanding New Business at the Business NSW Northern Rivers Regional Business Awards, it was more than a moment of recognition. It was a signal that the foundations, laid carefully with clear direction and intent, were starting to make an impact.
Terania began with a simple, purposeful idea: build a surveying and engineering consultancy that puts people first. Not just as clients, but as collaborators, as community members, and as part of something bigger than a single project.
Based in Lismore, a region with both incredible challenges and remarkable resilience, the Terania team set out to deliver high quality work grounded in local knowledge and long term thinking.
The company name itself, Terania, is a tribute to the region’s past. It's a reminder that the work being done today is part of a longer story, one rooted in place, in people, and in the idea that good infrastructure can shape more than just landscapes. It can shape lives.
From the outset, Terania has focused on cutting through complexity. There’s no appetite here for jargon or bloated processes. Instead, we take pride in delivering solutions that are not only technically sound, but genuinely valuable to the communities we serve.
That might mean repairing a flood-damaged bridge, helping a young surveyor take their first steps in the industry, or donating technical services to a rainforest restoration project. Whatever the work, the approach remains the same, listen first, then act with purpose.
Winning the Outstanding New Business award didn’t happen overnight. It came on the back of countless hours on site, around tables, in community halls and council offices. It came from doing the work, not just talking about it. And it reflects the collective effort of the whole team - from directors Chris Pickford, Dennis Young, and Jeff Pickford, to every engineer, designer, and support staff member who has helped shape Terania into what it is today.
But perhaps most importantly, the recognition also belongs to the broader network that supports and surrounds the business. Clients who believed in a new player. Local organisations who welcomed partnerships. Peers and mentors who offered advice, encouragement, or a nudge in the right direction. And of course, the Northern Rivers community whose challenges, creativity, and deep sense of place continue to inspire and guide Terania’s work every day.
What has set Terania apart is not just what we do, it’s why and how we do it. We see our role as more than transactional, but as part of something collaborative and evolving. We’ve contributed to critical projects like the Science Saving Rainforests initiative with Big Scrub Rainforest Conservancy, helped raise funds for paediatric care through the Darrel Chapman Fun Run, and committed time and expertise to mentoring university students preparing to enter a profession facing a serious skills shortage.
These efforts aren’t add-ons. They’re woven into the way the business operates - proof that strong values can coexist with strong delivery. And while awards are never the goal, they do offer a powerful reminder that purpose-led work resonates.
Recognition like this doesn’t mean the work is finished. If anything, it’s a motivation to keep going. To keep showing up. To keep building, both infrastructure and relationships, with the same attention, integrity, and care that sparked Terania’s founding in the first place.
Success for Terania isn’t measured only in business metrics. It’s seen in the strength of a bridge after the next storm. In the confidence of a student walking onto a site for the first time. In the seedlings taking root in rehabilitated rainforest soil.
This award is one moment. The impact still to come is what really matters.