On completion of this qualification, I went on to work for R A Lister the diesel engine and generator manufacturer in Dursley, Gloucestershire, initially building 4 and 6 cylinder engines on the production line before moving onto the inspection department where I covered a large number of sections within the factory to attain a ‘first off’ role which meant that I could authorise a production run based on the setters tooling being within tolerance for the piece being manufactured.

After a few years of factory life on days and nights I noticed a job advertised for a service engineer, this was a role that I had originally applied for when joining Listers but was told that only ex apprentices become service engineers! Much to the HR managers surprise I was offered the role, a first for Listers, which took me to Kent where I covered the South East of England dealing with warranty claims for a range of equipment, routine maintenance of standby generators and full servicing of generating plant at outlying properties that had no mains connection.

Listers decided to sell on the franchise for parts and service to Saville Tractors and along with a number of colleagues I was tupe’d to Saville Tractors the International Harvester dealer for the UK, alongside the Lister equipment I was now involved with heavy plant however this only lasted a short time as I was unhappy with the restrictive way of working having no van spares stock making it almost impossible to do a first visit repair.

I moved on to Amber Plant Hire (which became Amber Langis Ltd) to look after the fleet of generators for the portable traffic signals, this soon expanded into floodlighting and I was covering call outs for the signals on a rota basis. The organisation grew and we added plant crossings, notably for the M20, M25 and M26 which always seemed to require attention following a heavy rainfall which made attending site and cable repairs a sticky business. The organisation moved into providing signals for junctions in London, initially directly for TCSU (now TfL) and Serco with junctions in central London and the North Circular being duplicated as far as possible within the range of equipment available. At this point permanent signal controllers were introduced which were supported by Peek and Microsence.

After 19 years I moved on and joined LDDC (London Docklands Development Corporation) at Limehouse Tunnel where I was Mechanical Supervisor, this gave me the tunnel mechanicals such as fans, pumps and fire equipment to look after as well as the highway infrastructure, if you have dealt with a tunnel, you will know that there is a lot of equipment involved that is unseen when passing through. During this time I gained a post graduate degree in Business Management.

After two years I moved on to Serco as the Operations Manager on the Beckton Signals and ELTRAC contracts, involving looking after over 2500 signal sites and Blackwall tunnel, the A2 and North Circular, during this time ARTSM were being asked to introduce a competency scheme by the Highways Agency, a number of organisations were involved including Siemens, Peek, Microsence and ourselves, none of whom had any idea where to start until it was mentioned that an organisation called ASLEC has done something similar, from this point is where the connection between the specialist traded became involved with public lighting.

As I was the one in Serco who knew about this scheme I was tasked with rolling it out across the whole of the Integrated Transport business, some 350 staff initially, we met the deadlines for the initial requirement and moved on to including the other outlying contracts which was probably a bigger job than the original. From this time I was also involved in bids some of which were high profile, some were won, others lost, previously I had been fortunate enough to attend a number of training courses, ISO9001, 14001 and later 27001, IOSH and IHE courses which increased my knowledge and led to me being the bid lead on operations for the London Cycle Hire Scheme (Boris’s Bikes) this led to me joining the team and seeing the bid turn to reality through installation and into operations on the first day all in three years.

On leaving Serco as the Assurance Manager I set up my own company providing training and consultancy into the highway electrical industry before joining Imtech (latterly Dyniq) where I became an NVQ assessor and IV, this period also involved setting up the NVQ centre and providing training against the HERS  and HESA requirements.

After two years I moved on and joined the HEA where I was a trainer , Auditor and NVQ assessor, predominantly covering the specialist areas with traffic signals, cameras, both CCTV and enforcement, VMS and EMS, Communications and Slot Cutting, this came to an end after just over 7 years when I retired. During this period I attended a number of training courses ranging from electrical testing to City & Guilds EV installation.

So what am I doing now, well you can only watch so much daytime tv so I am back to a couple of days a week carrying out NVQ induction, site assessment and report writing, something that I have plenty of experience delivering but this time for a small and dedicated organisation. In my personal life I am currently chairman of 41 club, the association for ex round table’s, I am also a school governor for the local federation primary school and am involved in village life with the gardening club, and if the weathers reasonable I take the scooter out for a ride (having had to give up a bike with a clutch due to an old war wound) and walking in the countryside.