The main drivers in my life have been my interest in machinery and rebuilding the same along with optimising and improving.
At the age of 14, I was helping my father who was a motor mechanic, we fixed cars and personally I got into rebuilding motor bikes. Later at 15 years of age, I progressed on to rally cars. The rallying was a particular favourite past time of mine and it allowed me to travel with a rally team to all parts of the UK and Europe.
At school I especially enjoyed the science subjects and never liked or did well at arty type subjects, they were, however, a must to get into college, so I kind of had to do them.
I have always been involved in sports ranging from rugby, climbing, walking, fishing and skiing to name a few. Most of these sports have involved team participation, which is now an essential part of my days work.
At college I studied Metallurgy (the study of metals) and decided that it was now really time to put more effort into the job in hand rather than all sport as I had tended to do at school.
I graduated from Brunel University in 1988 with a first class degree that allowed me to then return to my sponsoring company Stanton PLC, in Nottingham as part of the central melting plant team.
Following this first expedition in to engineering management I moved to a supplier company that allowed me to have more travel in Europe.
Following this I then became a Plant Manager at a stainless steel melting shop in Derbyshire that were specialists in Rapid Cooling Technologies with products being developed for use on aircraft.