Against the grain

How did you begin your construction career?
I followed my dad into the family business, though reluctantly at first. I was going to join the navy, but enjoyed my CITB course in carpentry and joinery so much I decided to take it up. My dad took me on as an apprentice joiner and it went from there.

What inspired you into site management and to take your degree?
Myself. I didn't want to be stuck in the family business and I wanted to get out of site work and into a more managerial role. I got an HNC but was getting knocked back from the jobs I was applying for in site management. A friend of my dad's said I had to get a degree if I wanted to progress, so I decided to do that full time. I'd done day release before and it was very hard work, so I went to Liverpool Polytechnic, as it was called then, full time when I was 25.

Was it difficult 'going back to school' and being surrounded by much younger people?
It was a rest compared to working! I found it easy in the first year because I'd covered a lot of the ground through working in the industry. The third year was toughest, with the dissertation, but I came out with a distinction in my BSc degree. There was an age gap - the younger students could certainly drink more than me! I was the sensible one with the car until I had to sell it. But I had three good years in Liverpool. It's a good place to be a student.

How did you feel when you passed the course?
It was great to achieve it and I was the first in my family to get a degree. It was always something I'd aspired to and it meant a lot to me, especially coming from a chippie background. But I think it's something the average tradesperson could do if they put their mind to it.

How did you feel on your first day on site as a site manager?
It was a bit scary, but exciting too. It was an unknown quantity for me. It was also a bit of a risk for Bovis to take me on, but they wanted someone with a trade background and academic qualifications so I was the perfect role model.

Did it help that you had worked as a chippy beforehand?
Very much so. Site management is all about dealing with people, and you've got to be able to speak their language. It was easy to relate to the tradespeople because I knew how it felt to do that job and I wasn't asking them to do anything I wouldn't do myself. People who do go straight into site management from education are at a disadvantage because they don't have that. You need the experience of working on site.

A degree is something the average tradesperson could achieve if they put their mind to it

What you're doing now is a bit of a change from site management. How did you progress from there to your current position?
I moved from being a site manager to a project manager on bigger jobs. Then at the end of 1993, Bovis was looking for people to work in head office to put proposals together for mainland Europe. I decided to take up an assistant proposals manager post there and ended up running the marketing support department. I held that post for three and a half years, then the opportunity to work on simplifying the Lend Lease brand came up and I took it.

Bovis also paid for me to do an MA in management development while I was in marketing support, which really helped me to do that job. It was all about motivation and team building, something that was lacking in my building degree course, which was largely technical; it didn't cover contracts or the human side of construction, which is just as important.

How do you feel about being given the massive responsibility of refreshing the Lend Lease brand?
I see it as building on my skills. I'm not an expert in this, I'm a manager, but there is the expertise here to help me. You don't get a chance to get stale here, there are always opportunities to move into different areas.

How does the lunching circuit compare to the tough environment of site management?
I was getting tired of the transient nature of working on site, especially with a family to bring up. I wanted some stability. But I do miss site management. There's nothing like physically producing a building. And I miss the camaraderie and the banter. But when the new website goes up, I hope it will have the same effect on me. It's still a project with a timescale, a budget and an end product. It's not all that different to site management.