Profile

I grew up in a small former mining village in Ayrshire, Scotland where there wasn’t always much to do.  From a young age I can always remember having music on in the house and whilst my own musical ability was limited (at best!), as I grew up I started to accumulate quite a collection of tapes.  My taste has evolved quite considerably since then, but my love of music is just as strong.  I started going to gigs in high school, from which point I’ve never looked back.  Living and working in Glasgow during my time at university was both great and expensive as a consequence.

As for refereeing – well, to be honest, I was awful at football!  I love to play it, but I was never particularly good at it.  I’m fairly certain I only got into the primary school team because there was ~10 boys in my year group!  Once I had settled where I currently live, I was keen to get playing socially when one night I saw on Facebook that the local association was recruiting referees.  I promptly signed myself up, completed the training and started off at amateur level.  I don’t do as much at the moment as I used to, but it’s still a good way to keep fit.

My role is split into two, roughly equal parts – one technical, one quality. The technical part involves me helping to develop new products on the plant and also providing technical advice on both the day-to-day running issues and projects which are ongoing.

For the quality part of my role, I am ultimately responsible for ensuring that what is made on the plant is manufactured to customer specifications. This includes making sure all instruments are working properly and that production runs to standard conditions.

If we have a new product in the early stages of development, I am some times required to work later or even overnight to help support these.

Owing to the mixed nature of my role, I genuinely can’t recall having had 2 days which have been the same in the last 3.5 years. But to be honest, that’s part of what I love about my job. I spend quite a bit of time in meetings, but these can be about a new product we are looking to make (technical) or dealing with a customer complaint (quality). I also usually have to deal with a lot of emails, and I’m responsible for assembling a weekly review of the plant performance, which I present and lead discussion on every Friday morning.

I also spend a lot of my time talking to other people on the plant. Whether it’s to discuss an upcoming trial for a new product, to offer technical support or gain more understanding of a plant issue, or to discuss a piece of equipment, the best way to start with these is to speak with the relevant folks on site. It is only through collaboration that so much of my work gets done.