Area Technical Operations Manager

At sixteen I had the choice between ‘A’ Levels or a Modern Apprenticeship with Pilkington Glass, which combined NVQ’s while you worked four day’s a week plus one day at College doing an ONC followed by a HNC. The next company I moved to after my Apprenticeship sponsored me to do a Honours Degree in Engineering with Business Studies. Two years after graduation my career had come to a dead end, Manufacturing in the UK was on its knee’s and there was talk of the factory I was working at closing. So at the age of 25 I applied to be an Engineer Surveyor with (as it was then) Allianz Cornhill Engineering. From the assessment day itself, the first thing that hit me about the company was its professionalism as the day ran like clockwork, even though I had no idea how I had done.

After being offered the job and well before I started with Allianz, I was contacted for sizes of my overall’s and my tools were ordered. My car even arrived before my first day. The next thing that hit me was the quality of the training. I spent three months undertaking a mixture of field and classroom based training followed by a two week field assessment then final authorisation. During this time I was also encouraged to join the Society of Operations Engineer’s. As I had not been in a Society since leaving University I was encouraged to work towards Incorporated Status with the Engineering Council. After successful authorisation it was great to get out and do my first day of inspections on my own followed by returning home to report and start planning my own area.

I was in my second year of Surveying when the company launched the ‘Engineering Development Programme’. This programme is a form of Management Training and as with everything in the Company it was very well run, but also hard work. I thoroughly enjoyed it and for the first time I was able to use some of the skills I had picked up from the Business element of my degree. After the programme was finished I was offered a six month secondment running the team of Surveyors I was in. This was quite a leap from Surveying but the EDP had covered a lot of the areas and that, coupled with the support from my colleagues and Manager was great. After the six months secondment came to an end I applied for a position as an Area Technical Operations Manager to run my own team. After successfully passing the assessment day I started the role I am currently in today running a team of twenty five surveyors covering four different disciplines and I have just achieved full Chartered Engineer status from the Engineering Council.