Career Biography

Below you can read my detailed career biography, whilst to the right there is a short bullet-point summary. The detailed version is probably rather more interesting and I have also included, in the panel on the right, images of a number of the products that I have been involved with during a varied career across a number of different technology fields.
  

FieldTech

After gaining my degree, I began my career as an engineer in an avionics (radio, radar, navigation) repair and overhaul workshop and was quickly promoted to Service Manager, with responsibility (including P&L) for running the entire Service Centre, with over 30 engineers plus support staff. The centre served the commercial airline, general aviation and military sectors and also maintained airborne rescue beacons and communications jamming systems. The company also sold Bendix avionics and IFR specialised avionics and comms test equipment, which they also used in their own workshops.

The Hunting Group, which owned Fieldtech, was (and still is, to an extent) a large company with smaller companies within it, involved in a number of different business areas. A decision was made to rationalise the naming policy for much of the Group so that many of the individual company names were changed to incorporate the Hunting name. Thus Fieldtech became Hunting Avionics.
  

Hunting Avionics

A number of new projects had just started and the company wanted to create a department to run these and take advantage of opportunities to sell customised versions of their existing products and to develop new ones. I created that department (Technical Support Services - TSS) from scratch. Thus I became involved in the early days of GPS and, in collaboration with Magnavox, we designed a portable GPS based timing station to provide the master sync clock for the frequency-hopping secure radio "Have-Quick II" system. This was initially deployed during the Falklands Conflict and subsequently in a number of other locations.

The company was also awarded a contract to introduce, and become UK design authority for, a Station Keeping Equipment navigation system (SKE), designed and manufactured by Sierra Research Inc. (now DRS Technologies) to be fitted to the RAF Hercules (C130) fleet to enable them to fly in close formation in bad visibility. The system was also capable of locating downed aircrew using a personal location beacon activated by the searching aircraft. My team designed and built a special transportable version of the aircraft system that could be fitted to helicopters and other aircraft at short notice to enable search and rescue missions. We also liaised with UK MoD on the installation and commissioning of the Hercules systems, including the flight trials. During this time, I also designed and wrote the software for an intelligent controller to turn Spectrum Analysers and Communications Service Monitors that the company sold, into an effective tool for the DTI Radio Investigations Branch mobile surveillance units to trace and log pirate radio transmissions. I also ran training courses for the combined system.

As an adjunct to its main business, the company also had a division that sold security products (perimeter sensors, etc). I was involved in this too and conceived a pioneering design for a digital-multiplexed security monitoring, control and display system. I was also responsible for running the design and development programme, much of it being sub-contracted, to turn the design into reality (CMS-2000). This was very successful and was installed in many locations, both civil and military, including CDE Porton, Coulport Nuclear Submarine Base, British Gas Storage Depots, Aztec West Business Park, UCL and Guernsey Fire & Police to name just a few. I was heavily involved in the sale, installation and support of all of these.

At that time the company had also started to become involved in In-Flight Entertainment (IFE), initially designing systems for the BAe 748/ATP aircraft and the Chinook helicopter for North Sea operations. They then developed a prototype in-seat video player (for use in 1st Class long-haul seats) and were subsequently awarded a contract to equip the whole British Airways (BA) long-haul fleet. Hunting then needed a manufacturer for the system and so they bought a small in-flight video company (Curtis & Green) which they later renamed Hunting In-Flight Systems.
  

Hunting In-Flight Systems

Hunting IFS made and assisted with the installation of systems for numerous customers including British Airways, United Airlines, Cathay Pacific and others. They also started a division, which I lead, to develop their systems for VIP and Corporate aircraft. I transferred there to apply my skills and data-comms experience, gained with the security monitoring and control system, to the new IFE systems. Initially I lead the team that applied this to the first interactive seat-back screen IFE system, which was trialled on the BA long-haul fleet and which you can see developments of today on most long-haul airlines. I also applied the data-comms techniques to a new corporate/VIP IFE system.

A whole new generation of equipment with LCD touchscreen control units was designed, well in advance of anything else on the market at the time. The lower range became standard equipment on several corporate jets such as the Bombardier Challenger 600 series and the larger VIP systems were custom built, installed and commissioned for the likes of the Sultan of Brunei, News International, F1 Racing, Air Force One, etc, etc. often using completion centres (such as Raytheon/CTAS in Waco, Texas) in the USA. I was involved at all stages from pre-sales through to in-service support and managed both the main development teams and the commissioning team at the Waco completion centre.

The larger systems introduced Ethernet networking (taken from my experience managing the company IT systems, for which I was also responsible), under-seat mini-PC's, digital Audio-on-Demand (AoD) multi-node replay, Office-In-The-Sky (which included Internet access using the Inmarsat network) and other cutting edge functionality. It was so new, that the CAA (who certifies equipment for airborne use) had no experience of it and so my team worked with them to develop certification standards for the new designs. It also meant interfacing to the existing aircraft systems (power, PA/PRAM units, etc) and carrying out tests to ensure that it didn't interfere with the main avionics. The company was also at the forefront of the early Video-on-Demand (VoD) trials, in-seat laptop power supply systems and in-seat phones (using the GTE Airfone system).
  

IEC International

Hunting PLC took the decision to rationalise its corporate structure and sell the majority of its commercial aviation interests. Hunting IFS, the last part to be sold, became IEC International. The new management, some of whom were ex-Hunting from other parts of the Group, had huge plans for the business and quickly began expanding, moving into new premises several times larger than they had occupied before. Several complex new products, including all-digital audio and video switching systems, were developed by my team with heavily compressed timescales. Large numbers of new orders were accepted.

However, staff numbers lagged this increase, delivery dates began to slip and quality and reliability problems surfaced in the field. This cost them much goodwill (not to mention money) and the order books then began to shrink. Staff numbers then overshot and the operation became loss-making and slowly shrank in size. At their height they employed more than 120 people. By the time I departed, they were down to under 30 and I could see that the end was not far off. Some months later the remnants of the company and the rights to its products were purchased, for a nominal sum, by Intheairnet.
  

Pentathlon Computer

An ex-colleague, from my Hunting days, then offered me the opportunity to start a new business selling Pentium and Athlon based (hence the name) PC's over the Internet. It was to be based on the Isle of Wight (where he was living and which had a low cost base). I commuted down to the island on Monday morning and back on Friday afternoon. The plan was that, once the business was up and running, I would sell-up and move down to the island. Things went well and, having originally started from a single room at my ex-colleagues home (an 11 bedroom ex-hotel), the business quickly moved into its own premises and took on new staff.

After many hours of hard work, things were going well for the business and it was making money. However, my ex-colleague had a number of debts when we started the computer company and now he was being pressed to repay them faster than he had been. So he and his then partner (who was the third director) decided between them to take my share of the business. I was voted out - without any warning. At the time my house was on the market and I'd made an offer on a place on the IoW. This all had to be unwound very quickly. I left, went back to the mainland and ceased to be involved. Some months later, the company closed in unexplained circumstances.

Meanwhile, I turned to various self-employed consultancy activities whilst I found a new permanent role. These ranged from building and installing PC's to working on the design of a life-raft deployment system for a helicopter.
  

Hitec Laboratories

I secured the Professional Services Manager role with Hitec, to organise and manage a new team of project managers/analysts and implementation/support engineers. When I started, they had no proper procedures or processes, no document control and no idea if they were making money or not. I recruited some additional staff to fill skills gaps and set about turning them into a proper operational unit. From my previous project management experience, I introduced new processes, document controls and proper activity and financial reporting. For the first time they were working to time plans and budgets and knew where their effort was going. This reduced "lost" time (putting right errors, etc) to less than half the previous levels within only a few months. In addition to implementing systems, under my guidance they also began generating services business in their own right - and making money at it! I was also heavily involved in turning round a couple of large projects, which had run into difficulties during the period just prior to my arrival.

However, after a record performance that year, general product sales then took a turn for the worse. After one flat quarter and a second poor quarter the MD (and co-owner of the company) decided to make cutbacks and I was among those who fell victim to the resulting downsizing. I must have done something right though, as several members of my team told me that they’d be very happy to work for me again elsewhere.
  

Supportsoft / Consona

From Hitec I went to SupportSoft where I was a Senior Consultant/Project Manager, overseeing global virtual teams delivering the company's technology support software to medium and large broadband Internet Service Providers. I also worked as part of the team defining the in-house developed 'Navigator' project methodology. However, after a change of corporate direction, the Enterprise Division was sold to Consona who acquired the product portfolio to sit alongside their existing CRM products. Development of the SupportSoft products had slowed, prior to the acquisition by Consona, who then attempted to define a new product roadmap against the backdrop of a looming recession. The economic downturn hit the business hard and the forecast revenue growth did not materialise. Although highly regarded by both colleagues and customers, I was amongst those let go as the company shed almost all the staff they had gained in the acquisition.
  

Enjenta

Enjenta came about as a result of some discussions between myself and another Consona colleague who was also caught in the staff reductions. We'd been observing the trend towards customers using social media to air their grievances and support problems, rather than the more traditional methods of contact centre and forums. We decided to develop a new product that would capitalise on this growing trend. I have overall responsibility for the development of the Jemini Social Support Engine and HelpWorlds Social Support Communities web-application, which combines core user community features with many innovations not seen before in this market. In addition to application development, the company also has a consulting services arm, able to work with organisations on project delivery, customer support strategy and the use of social networking features and tools to enhance solution effectiveness.