Dr Stephan Ramabodu has been elected as president of the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors (ASAQS).

The new ASAQS president came from a particularly disadvantaged background and had to do gardening work to pay for his high school studies.

Spurred on by the promise of a bursary if he managed to matriculate, the young Ramabodu managed just that and enrolled at UFS for a generic BSc degree which he changed to BSc QS studies after an uncle who worked on a building site introduced him to the quantity surveying profession.

Dr Ramabodu, who obtained a PhD at UFS in 2014, says his main aspirations as leader of ASAQS are transformation, including gender equality, marketing the profession, research, and  “providing the ultimate service to ASAQS members.”

A senior lecturer at the University of the Free State (UFS), Dr Ramabodu’s first practical experience of the QS profession was as student QS at B&L Bloemfontein while studying for a BSc Quantity Surveying degree. After graduation, he became a junior lecturer at the university and did private work for contractors or QS firms to gain further experience.

In 2006, he joined the construction consultancy, Davis Langdon, as a director and in 2008, left to start his own business, Ramabodu & Associates. He was also reappointed as lecturer at UFS where he completed a Master’s degree in 2005.

Thereafter, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer at UFS, and also elected as Senior Vice- President of ASAQS, Fees Chairman of ASAQS, and Editorial Board Chairperson of Acta Structilia, a national journal for research articles in the physical and development sciences, published by the UFS Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management.