When First Nations entrepreneur Grant Maher finally launched his engineering consultancy business, he faced a hurdle he never saw coming.

The exact day he and his business partner Dennis Jose started trading as Jabin in March 2020, Brisbane went into lockdown because of COVID-19.

"So, our first official day for Jabin just happened to be my birthday, but it also happened to be the first day of lockdowns," he told the National Indigenous Times.

"We were sitting down pretty nervously, racking through what's going to happen.

"But we were pretty lucky that we already had some work, but we kind of projected out that we probably only have about nine months' worth of income if we didn't find anything more."

Since navigating the treacherous waters of the pandemic, the Brisbane-based business has gone on to work on some major projects, including designing and testing the façade for the new Powerhouse Museum in Parramatta and Parramatta and managing the delivery of numerous defence projects across Queensland.

The Aboriginal-owned and operated company also designed cyclone-proof housing for remote and regional communities, delivered as a flat-pack that can be erected by locals within 16 hours.

Mr Maher – a proud descendant of the Gumbaynggirr and Biripi people from Northern New South Wales- said in some cases, the housing in remote communities was poorly designed.

"You have people who may not understand or just don't have that knowledge about Aboriginal communities, and designing something just to not fit for purpose," he said.

"We always think about Indigenous people helping communities and our families through health and the law.

The 43-year-old is passionate about mentoring young First Nations engineers as he was the first Indigenous student to graduate from the University of Sydney with a double degree in engineering and commerce in 1998.

In 2016, he worked with Engineers Australia to create and develop the Indigenous Engineers Chapter with a focus on increasing numbers.

"You know, a lot of Indigenous kids get into law or health," he said.

"Which is great, because you need doctors and good lawyers, but we never think about what engineers can do to benefit our communities from an engineering perspective."

"And that's a really big thing I want us to do."

Mr Maher is also the chief executive of Deadly Coders - a registered charity on a mission to empower Indigenous youth to access impactful education and career pathways through passion, creativity and technology.

The father of three is also a director at the Indigenous-owned company Fire and Wattle, which helps businesses in developing, refining, or implementing their Reconciliation Action Plan.

He said giving back to the community is at the forefront of everything he does.

"I was given an opportunity that would never have come to me if there wasn't anything out there like that," he said.

"I would have maybe gone down and become a pretty average lawyer, because that's not my thing.

"I want us to be involved in the decisions we make about infrastructure, about housing, and the economy."

And when it comes to taking the plunge into business Mr Maher has one bit of advice: just do it.

"Make sure you understand the industry you're going into," he said.

Understanding your market, understanding what you do and how you can differentiate yourself from the market.

"If you understand the market, you understand your product, you're in a pretty good stead."