through the personal development management system (PDMS) and are encouraged to pursue chartered status. Exciting lifestyle We’re always on the lookout for the right people to offer them a career with opportunity to work offshore and experience a different exciting lifestyle. In this kind of role, they can often alternate between working from home and working offshore. Recently, it’s been more difficult to attract people of the right calibre. My own thought reading the news is that there is a perception that the oil and gas market is declining. However, during a recent meeting with the BFPA the team they made it clear that the skills shortage is not just related to the oil and gas sector, it’s a national issue across all engineering and manufacturing industries. BFPA-approved courses We’re fortunate as a company in that we have our own training department and run a training centre for both internal and external candidates. Our hydraulic courses are also fully approved by the BFPA. We have many disciplines within the company, including a drives and controls team. These people program PLCs and work very closely with hydraulics and so on. The team comprises the hydraulics, electrical and automation personnel split into their own respective sub-teams. The collective teams all work very closely together, with the hydraulic people also learning electrical and automation skills, and the automation and electrical people learning hydraulics skills. Fruitful career I, myself, covered multi-disciplinary subjects during my apprenticeship with BP Exploration before joining Altrad Sparrows. So, I got to know the basics of hydraulics, automation and the electrical side early on and that set me in good stead for the varied career I have enjoyed within Altrad Sparrows for the past 27 of my 33 years in the industry. I’ve had numerous roles within Altrad Sparrows. Starting out on the mechanical side, I then became a hydraulic technician, which led to a position as a hydraulic project engineer, then senior engineer. Later, I worked as an account manager and later as a business manager. I’ve been a principal engineer and now I’m a technical authority. So, this industry has given me a highly enjoyable and very varied career over three decades. I can’t recommend it enough, but it’s really down to our industry to find a more effective way to get more young people engaged in all the good things we have to offer. 42 www.bfpa.co.uk
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