John Holland (engineer)

Sir John Holland AC (21 June 1914 – 31 May 2009) was an Australian engineer and construction magnate, who founded the John Holland Construction Group (later named John Holland (Holdings) Pty Ltd) in 1949, was Managing Director until 1972, Chairman until 1986, and President from 1986 until his death. The company was purchased by Heytesbury Pty Ltd in 1991, and is now owned by China Communications Construction.

Holland's company's projects included major work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme including diverting the Snowy River, the new Parliament House, Canberra, the West Gate Bridge and Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, the Sydney Entertainment Centre, the rebuilding of the Tasman Bridge in Hobart, a significant role in the rebuilding of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy in 1974, and overseas project such as the Australian Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Clifton Vaughan Holland was born on 21 June 1914, the eighth of ten children, and was raised on his family's farm on the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne. He acquired the informal name John at an early age, and he was always known as John Holland thereafter. He studied civil engineering at the University of Melbourne and then worked for the Commonwealth Oil Refineries for three years. He joined the army when World War II broke out, and served in the Middle East, Greece and the Pacific, becoming a lieutenant-colonel. He returned to civil engineering, setting up his own business in 1949. His first contract was to build a shed on a property in western Victoria owned by a farmer named Malcolm Fraser, who would later go into politics and become the Prime Minister of Australia.

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