Mr Hewatt has recalled the nightmarish weeks leading up to the disaster in May last year, when he went into voluntary administration and left 300 people without work. Some of his staff, fearing a firesale, stole millions of dollars worth of company equipment. Rumours swirled through the civil industry of him committing suicide. He says the ACT Government treated him like a "grubbie subbie under the fingernail of life".

Persistent heavy rain led to the collapse. Mr Hewatt says a souring relationship with the head contractor Fulton Hogan didn't help matters. The project had started badly from the time it came to move earth, when specifications from the NSW Roads and Maritime Services conflicted with specifications from the ACT.

"It was a bastardised specification, it is part Roads and Maritime Services [NSW] and part ACT. So you have this specification, you might be testing under RMS, but surveying under something else, it is just a bastardised system. It is not good now, wasn't good 10 years ago, and won't be until they turn around and do what Victoria did. They threw out all their specification and adopted RMS's and use it."

During the two-month delay he was employing five engineers and other staff and the wage bill was ticking over. These days Mr Hewatt feels badly for people still owed money.

"If I could wave a magic wand and pay everyone at least 60 cents in the dollar, they would be happy, but it doesn't go that way because when you go into business you are putting your neck on the line," he said.

"I'm poking along, still working with unsecured creditors, we will pay the final payment under the deed of company arrangement, $350,000 next month."

These days he is doing small jobs. "I'm only working for people I know, doing minimal work for choice contractors, or sub-contracting or hourly hire. I'm not going out to be a world breaker. I am doing a couple of odd jobs for people who know me and want to support me.

"I'd like to think I could go to [employing] 30 or 40 blokes down the track, a comfortable size. There is a lot [of] thought to go into it at this stage."

In his early 50s, Mr Hewatt says there is plenty of time to figure out what he wants to do. "I do love the industry, I love the work and people in it, I still want to continue somewhere along the line. I don't think I could make pizzas, I don't think that would suit me."