Built by people who’ve spent their careers on the client side.
Established in 2024, HazardProof is a specialist hazardous area and electrical engineering firm. The business name is new – the experience behind it isn’t. Our team has spent careers inside operating sites, which shapes how we assess risk, frame compliance, and work with the people who run those sites every day.
A nimble firm, built around how sites actually operate.
HazardProof began with a clear gap in mind. Having worked inside operating sites, we saw the need for a smaller, responsive engineering firm, one that could support operational requirements directly, without the distance and process weight of a large consultancy.
Hazardous areas are where that focus sharpens. We’ve seen the difference a capable off-site partner can make to an operating site: not just signing off on compliance, but genuinely strengthening how safely and efficiently a site runs.
And we believe in an educational approach. Our job isn’t to dictate solutions and leave. It’s to guide and explain, so the teams we work with understand their own sites better after we’ve been there. That principle sits behind everything HazardProof does.
Meet the HazardProof team.
Every member of the team brings real operational experience: time spent on live sites, under the same constraints our clients work within.
CMChris – known to most as “Mapo” – co-founded HazardProof and leads its operations. He brings close to two decades of hands-on experience across metalliferous and underground coal mining, having worked through electrical supervision, engineering management, hazardous area electrical work (EEHA), and project management. He holds an ESO accreditation as a Hazardous Area Auditor.
Chris takes the lead on understanding what a client actually needs, then shapes the work around it. Having worked both client and contractor sides over his career, he’s seen both sides of the coin, and knows the difference between what looks right on paper and what holds up on an operating site. That’s the perspective he brings to every engagement.
LMLuke is a principal electrical engineer with more than twenty years of professional experience. He holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Honours) and is a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland (RPEQ).
His expertise spans project management, construction and commissioning coordination, HV/LV and control design, hazardous area classification and design, PLC programming, and HV/LV power systems analysis. He has contributed to projects across the airfield, gas, coal, iron ore, and intelligent transport sectors, and is known for managing work from initial scoping through to completion without losing sight of quality or efficiency.
DRDean brings over fifteen years of underground mining, electrical and operational experience, including leadership roles as an Electrical Coordinator with a focus on operational improvement. He holds his Queensland Electrical Engineering Manager (EEM) ticket and an MBA in Managing and Leading People, pairing hands-on technical depth with a genuine interest in safer, smarter systems.
His career spans major operators including Anglo American, Rio Tinto, and Glencore, where he led teams, introduced technology-driven solutions, and delivered projects that strengthened both compliance and performance. He has also led business-improvement work: standardising and streamlining reporting processes, machine reliability and failure investigations, and condition trending and visualisation in Power BI and OSIsoft PI. More recently he led the successful relocation of a tailings pump station at Capcoal.
His connection to HazardProof runs deeper than work, too. Dean has been a friend of Chris Mapleson since primary school, and brings that same trust and loyalty to the team.
Give Ethan a system that isn’t behaving, and his first instinct is to understand why before anyone touches it. That curiosity and methodical approach have carried him across a range of industries and it’s exactly the mindset hazardous area work demands.
Ethan joined HazardProof from a national role at Opal Packaging, where he provided electrical governance across every fibre packaging site in Australia and New Zealand. His responsibilities spanned standards compliance, electrical safety and the delivery of major projects. Before Opal, Ethan delivered complex projects across ports with Hutchison Ports, oil and gas through a PHE secondment to Santos, mining with South32, and chemical manufacturing with Coogee Chemicals.
Ethan is a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland (RPEQ) and a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) with Engineers Australia. He also holds certifications in hazardous area electrical equipment design, high-voltage switching and CMSE machine safety.
Ethan shapes his approach to suit each client and project individually, where he draws on his hands-on industry experience and strong technical expertise. For Ethan, no two projects or sites run the same way, and solutions shouldn’t either.
OMOlivia co-founded HazardProof and leads the business across everything beyond the engineering itself. For nearly 10 years, she has built a career in marketing, contributing to growth and global expansion within the mining, tunnelling, and industrial sectors.
She has a strong interest in data and analytics, and is currently completing a Master of Data Science, with a focus on bringing data-driven thinking into how HazardProof operates and makes decisions, from client insight through to smarter business strategy.
Our wider network Specialist partners we bring in to extend our capability.
Brent is the director of Grid Dynamics and is a Fellow of Engineers Australia (FIEAust) and a Chartered Professional Engineer with over 18 years across electrical power systems, operations management, and project delivery in the utility and industrial sectors. He holds RPEQ and CPEng registration, Engineering Executive status, a Bachelor of Engineering and an MBA.
His technical grounding is in electrical power systems: substations, HV systems, protection design, and standalone and critical power. Alongside that, he has led large multidisciplinary teams and transformed business operations, pairing deep engineering knowledge with commercial and operational judgement. That combination lets him see both the technical detail and the wider picture of how a project needs to run.
MEMitchell is a Director of Phase Dynamic and a Chartered Professional Electrical Engineer and Mechanical Engineer with over 15 years across engineering, operations, maintenance, and major project delivery in mining. He holds a Master of Electrical Engineering, a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, and CPEng and RPEQ registration. His career has been built in safety-critical, heavily regulated operating environments, directly accountable for statutory compliance, asset integrity, and safe production.
That operational grounding lets him bridge regulatory intent and what’s actually achievable on site. His recent work has centred on major electrical infrastructure upgrades: high-voltage switchgear replacements, transformer overhauls, protection relay modernisation and control system upgrades, often delivered within constrained shutdown windows on production-critical sites.
