Maurits Naborn: Raised on bricks, mortar and measurement

By its very nature, the construction industry is cold and clinical. Despite this, there is nowhere else Quantity Surveying Director for The Construction Company, Maurits Naborn, would rather be. Construction is in his blood, and he cannot imagine another career choice that would be more aligned with both his goals and upbringing.

Naborn was born into a long line of carpenters, masons, and tradesmen. Black and white photos of his great grandfather on a construction site in Dordrecht, Holland, date back to 1932. Escaping an economy devastated by the Second World War, Naborn’s family – including his father who was a six-year-old boy at the time – emigrated to South Africa two decades later. The family settled in Hennenman, a small town in the Free State Gold Fields, where Naborn’s uncle established a construction company, Naborn Construction. Operations were later moved to Kimberley in the Northern Cape where Naborn’s father and grandfather took the company from strength to strength.

“As a young boy, I visited construction sites with my dad and had the privilege of seeing a plan on a piece of paper evolve into a building,” recalls Naborn. “Sitting in our primary school’s hall, or travelling through Kimberley’s streets in a school bus, I could boast to my friends that ‘my dad built this’. Since those early years of my life, the only thing I ever wanted to do was become a builder myself.”

His early building experiences stood him in good stead to enter the industry. He qualified as a Quantity Surveyor with a BSc Honours degree from the University of the Free State in 2002. “Because there wasn’t much work in the Northern Cape at the time, my father suggested I either search for a job in Johannesburg or spread my wings and go overseas,” he says.

Naborn chose the latter and deepened his qualifications by becoming a Chartered Quantity Surveyor with a global professional body, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in the United Kingdom. His first job was as a Chartered Quantity Surveyor at Caston’s Chartered QS in Leamington, UK, where he was mostly involved in adjudications, arbitration, mediation, and general disputes. Additionally, he spent time at other practices to gain more practical QS experience.

Naborn later returned to South Africa and joined his father’s business in Kimberley before life and love took him to the Free State and Gauteng where he explored the various aspects of QS and project management at different firms.

In 2012, he obtained a master’s degree in Land and Property Development Management, endorsed with Project Management, from the University of the Free State. He signed up as a registered Project Management Professional with the South African Council for the Project and Construction Management Profession (SACPCMP) and, internationally, with the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Naborn joined The Construction Company in 2021 as Quantity Surveying Director to oversee a highly competent team of quantity surveyors and to explore ways of improving the business’ systems and processes to provide clients greater value for money.

“We are not reinventing the wheel; just putting on some new spokes. We are always looking for innovative ways to offer our clients greater efficiencies, faster turnaround times and improved accuracy of information,” he states.

Reflecting on the up and downward trends of the construction industry, he claims that it has always been characterised by feast or famine. “As a child observing my dad, I witnessed the ups and downs of the construction industry. Every seven to ten years, a high is followed by a low,” Naborn recalls. “When COVID-19 emerged, the industry was already on a downward cycle. The pandemic just gave it the final blow that sent it to its knees. It’s always challenging, and several companies are forced to either shut their doors for good or to reinvent themselves.”

The ever-changing industry reminds Naborn of the Charles Darwin quote: “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.” “This is what my team and I wish to achieve at The Construction Company,” says Naborn. “We continuously strive to adapt to an evolving environment by being resilient and building stronger muscles as we tackle the trials that we face along the way.”

Naborn believes that the South African construction industry has some catching up to do. “While our country buys into the concept of Ubuntu (I am because you are), many in our industry have not embraced the idea of working together for the greater good. The greatest construction successes occur when projects are viewed as team efforts and all players work together to achieve a common goal.”

Every single structure he is involved in building, whether it’s a new building, a refurbishment, or a park bench, Naborn views as part of the legacy he will leave. “Everything my teams and I work on are monuments that will be there for years to come. One day my children’s children will say, ‘This is what our grandfather built.’”