Alan Buckley, MSc HRM, Dip.RSA, Chartered FCIPD, FCMI
Centre for the Assessment of Technical Competence - Humber
I started life as a Chem Eng U/Grad student at Loughborough leaving after suffering an illness in year 2 of the course. I was sponsored by British Steel at that time and offered an opportunity to join the Drawing Office for a technical career in the steel industry. After completing a Technical Traineeship as a Detail Draughtman I moved on to Site Inspection as a Steelworks Inspector using my draughting skills in the team. Scheduled steelwork inspection was carried out on all buildings and all lifting cranes/plant particularly following damage reports for remedial work to maintain a safe working environment. The H&S at Work Act was newly introduced at that time (mid 1970s).
Redundancy loomed for so many in that industry from 1981 and I moved to a Technical Sales Engineer role with Lloyds British, part of the Davy Corporation in those days, supplying capital equipment for many lifting equipment brands such as Morris, Kone, Demag, Kuplex (Parsons) chain as well as shackles, lifting eyes and proof load testing services. We also manufactured OEM lifting frames and solved technical lifting problems for industry, in general. I also had a training role linked to supplying equipment and found that I enjoyed passing on the skills needed relating to the equipment.
With this in mind I decided to leave industry behind and concentrate more on a learning and development role by joining an Engineering Group Training Association as a Training Officer to progress my career in professional training. I returned to education at this point to add a Certificate in Training and Development to my ‘A’ Level qualifications of Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I missed the corporate life and eventually returned to industry as an Engineering Training Officer with Ciba-Geigy Chemicals. Early promotion to Training Manager came with a company renaming to Novartis, part of a corporate merger between Ciba and Sandoz, two Swiss chemical giants. I experienced major change involving a number of multi-million pound expansion projects creating new production facilities at the Grimsby site. This allowed me to complete my NVQ5 Management qualification and a Masters (HRM) as my interest in all matters HR developed. I remained as a Learning and Development specialist but took on more and more HR duties in a developing role. This involved the introduction of an early version of the Peoplesoft personnel software management system. 10 years was all it lasted when redundancy knocked again.
Not perturbed by this I applied to a not-for-profit skills project for the General Manager position in theHumber region. As well as using my familiar skillset I had the opportunity to build a small training team from scratch to mobilise the IMPRESS brand for Humber Client/Contractor Training Association in 2000. I was exposed to marketing, sales, accounts and all the facets of the micro SME world. Our key objective was to introduce a step change in skills delivery in the Humber region on behalf of a group of O&G, Chemical and Energy companies and their contractors/ service providers. We were fortunate to attract ESF grants alongside standard LSC apprenticeship funding to develop the business creating additional engineering apprenticeships and kick-starting adult skills training routes for semi-skilled and new entrants for the region. Early partnerships with FE colleges and approved training providers were very successful and IMPRESS introduced ECITB national apprenticeship training into Humberside for the first time in 2003.
During the first 6 years of operation IMPRESS had an employer led desire to build a unique skills centre model project to bring FE and approved training providers to one central point offering an authentic/realistic full scale operating training plant (OTP). An £8m project named CATCH was born, funded by EU, UK National Government, ECITB, our Local authority NELC and Humber region employers. IMPRESS withdrew from direct training interventions in favour of operating the CATCH facility in partnership with Humber Chemical Focus, later to become our parent company, in a financial marriage to enable the project for the greater good of employers in the region. The facility has a Conference Centre, a Process Plant (OTP) and an Engineering Workshop and the secure site mimics operations on a real plant to bring authentic training to future apprentices and adults entering local industries for the first time. Education and training providers were invited to support the scheme by renting space/facilities at CATCH to run improved apprenticeship programmes. ECITB opened a regional office in the centre creating a big ‘training’ step forward for engineering construction contractors who could now recruit apprentices from the national apprenticeship recruitment programme and direct their first-year training towards CATCH rather than centres much farther afield. Process Technician and Scaffolding apprenticeships are recent additions to our outputs and the Renewables Sector holds a lot of interest for HCF and CATCH based on the likelihood of substantial employment opportunities in the region if operating companies can be attracted to our region. Not only wind energy but bio-fuels and biomass power generation skills are all of interest to CATCH.