Etloe, England, United Kingdom
A dedicated, highly effective and self-motivated professionally accredited Chartered Engineer, I take personal pride in delivering strategic outputs within delegated resource and time constraints. As an approachable and considerate manager, I strive to gain the best from my team by actively encouraging them to develop professionally throughout their own careers, whilst also encouraging them to apply innovation and efficiency to the delivery of their responsibilities. Able to make considered decisions under substantial and sustained pressure, I have a proven track record in successfully directing and guiding my team through a potentially life threatening situation. Maintaining and continually developing my broad engineering acumen, I have gained accredited qualifications and extensive breadth of experience over a long career in the Defence Maritime sector, latterly focussing on product safety and the management arrangements that support this. As an established communicator, I produce succinct, accurate, and timely submissions to a variety of audiences, adapting my style to suit. Ardently seeking additional responsibility, I proactively learn new skills and gain the knowledge required to fulfil new opportunities. Experienced and adept at building and maintaining effective working relationships, I identify potential conflicts and intelligently interject to negotiate resolution from a diverse array of demanding stakeholders.
2nd Line of Defence for Engineering Assurance, accountable for the assurance of policy, competence, regulatory compliance and continuous improvement.
• Lead Auditor for Ships Domain in DE&S reporting directly to Director Ships on the maturity and implementation of Safety and Environmental management systems across the Domain. • Project SALUS Technical Lead and Contract Manager, delivering a £12N programme of work to support the Ships Operating Centres’ aspiration to attain substantial assurance against the Maritime Regulatory requirement. • Maritime Safety Development Programme and Maritime Domain Safety Strategy Technical Leads, supporting the MOD in the development of the Safety and Environmental Protection Organisation & Arrangements Statements and establishing Chief of Materiel (Fleet)’s Policy. • Commercial Marine Sector, defining the framework of a Safety Management System and developing a hazard log for the tidal power generation sector. A market where no legal requirement had been established but where the customer wished to demonstrate a level of compliance against good practice and equivalent standards. • Authored and developed the MARS Tanker Class Explosives Safety Case on behalf of the client to an exemplar standard, whilst addressing combat safety and platform vulnerability. • In addition to technical project delivery, in my role as a Group Leader, I am a member of the Management Team. In this role, I am responsible for the output of my team of Subject Matter Experts to deliver their technical and project responsibilities on time, within cost, and to the requisite quality. • A proportion of my time is dedicated to identifying opportunities for growth and putting plans in place to realise these, either through appropriate delegation across the business matrix or direct involvement. • As a campaign manager, I have been set challenging targets and delivered significant market sector gains.
- Equipment Project Manager responsible for all aspects of equipment sustainability, provision and support. - Safety Focal point for 2 sections, resposnible for the timely resolution of outstanding control measures and actions. - Managing and responsible for the raising of equipment contracts.
- Delegated Platform Duty Holder (PDH) representative and single point of contact for the Swedish Design Authority (FMV) during the UK Combat Boat 90 (CB90) trials schedule. - Technical Manager and delegated PDH representative for the £10M Partially Air Cushion Supported Catamaran (PACSCAT) Innovative Design Solution Project and instrumental in the turn around of the PASCAT Project from a failing project to completing highly successful trials. - Hazard Identification facilitator as the Safety & Technical Manager for the CB90 and PACSCAT Projects. - Lloyd’s Register, Naval Ships Rules, Subject Matter Expert; this being the subject for my MSc dissertation titled ‘Optimising Through-Life Engineering Support Through Classification Society Partnering’. - Consolidated experience within all Phases of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Project Management cycle. - Safety System Assurance Manager, managing the timely output of 8 Technical Officers to control and reduce risk in frontline ships. - Lead for a Ministry of Defence wide Working Group to develop procedures to gain further efficiencies from the safety process by evaluating current practice and recommending and implementing change. - Influential team member whilst developing the Class Output Management (COM) Work Breakdown Structure. - Mentor and manager for Graduate and Apprentice placements within the section; providing support, feedback and guidance whilst nurturing the future of engineering in the MoD.
- Member of the ship’s management board responsible for ensuring optimum manning levels that are fully trained, and the ship was materially ready and capable in all respects to deliver success against Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Navy Board directed and contingent tasking during an 18 month deployment (Operating in Antarctica, providing UK representation in the region, developing and nurturing relationships with West African countries and remaining at a high state of readiness for disaster relief and maritime interdiction operations). - Prepared and implemented a plan to successfully complete a 6 week maintenance period in South Africa. - Acted as specialist engineering and management advisor to West African navies, providing guidance with respect to fire fighting and damage control techniques, equipment maintenance, and general engineering administrative procedures. - Lead responsible for the organisation, administration, training, engineering professionalism and discipline of the Engineering Department onboard the ship. - Responsible for the operation, maintenance, performance, availability, security, custody, and safety of all engineering systems, equipments, and documents. - Responsible to the Command for the ship-borne fire fighting and damage control organisation, providing leadership and direction to the Ship’s company in the event of a major incident. - Responsible for the welfare and professional development of the engineering department of 28 personnel, including periodic performance reviews and writing annual appraisals for all members of the department.
- Lead for all aspects of Officer Recruiting in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, working autonomously, with sole responsibility for recruitment covering all cadres of the Officer core. - Developed and delivered a Leadership and Command Day for schools to determine the suitability of candidates for positions of responsibility. - Successfully established a means to objectively evaluate potential candidates and significantly reduce Admiralty Interview Board failure rates. - Honed and developed my interpersonal skills, communicating not only with the candidates dealing with their success and failure, but also the careers advisors, influencers and ‘gate keepers’ within the local communities.
- Specialist advisor to a NATO task group commander, coordinating sustainability issues across a multinational task group (UK, USA, Norwegian, German, and Spanish). - Responsible for the day to day business, of a multi-disciplined Marine Engineering Department (186 personnel), in the absence of my direct superior. - Responsible to the Command for all stability related issues with respect to the 21,000 tonne platform. - Responsible for the management and coordination of 30+ mechanics and technicians, charged with the provision and high availability of all generated power and domestic facilities for a ships company of 1200 personnel and an air group of up to 20 aircraft. - Coordinator, responsible for the execution and timely completion of Sea Acceptance Trials for the Propulsion plant and associated systems, reducing the time spent on trials significantly and setting the format for future trials. - Delegated financial authority as 1 of 4 zone managers, approving contract changes for a 24 month, major maintenance, and overhaul period for a project in excess of £110M. - Proactive team member that gained a Gold award in partnering during the 24 month major maintenance and overhaul period.