Profile

·         Past President of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) – 2000-2002 - the professional body providing the home to all Engineers and specialists working in the rural environment.

·         Founder member and past Chairman of Forestry Engineering Group UK. Founded in 1988, this is the foremost professional Forestry body in the UK.

·         Chairman of Innovative Timber Engineering Structures in the Countryside (InTeC) which is an international group of timber engineers and includes BRE and TRADA.

·         Led a Department of Trade and Industry International Technology Mission to Sweden and Norway (1999) to assess unsurfaced public roads for introduction to the UK.

·         Advised the Royal Academy of Engineering in Helsinki (2001) at a global convocation of Royal Academies entitled “World Forests and Technology”.

·         Principal organiser of an International Forestry Engineering conference in Edinburgh 1999 

·         Co- sponsored the 2^nd International conference (May 2003), in Sweden.

·         Keynote Speaker on Green Energy at 3^rd (Oct 2007), in Quebec.

·         Organiser of more than 20 major conferences in the UK

·         A project manager, designer and researcher, a Fellow of all three of my Institutions and Chartered in both Engineering and the Environment.

·         An applied and academic researcher - PhD in Timber Engineering.

·         More than 50 published papers. A mixture of award winning international refereed papers and national conference papers.

·         March 2006 - winner of the award of Merit from the Institution of Agricultural Engineers for "Outstanding contribution to the Forestry engineering Industry". This is the highest award the Institution can make.

·         Recently completed designs include Salcey Tree Top Walkway, 500 mirror treetop sculpture, 60m high viewing platform at Plodda Falls, wind farms infrastructure, mountain bike park, 50m span curved bridge in Kielder Forest and a 50m triple timber arch in the Yorkshire Dales.

·         Recent research includes major test programme to develop all timber, 44t capacity, road bridges for public road networks.

·         Recent Awards (2006) – British Construction Industry award for Environment, Bill Curtin medal (ICE) for Innovative Civil Engineering Design, Bomford Trust Award, Award of Merit for Outstanding Contribution to the Industry, BCIA High Commendation 2009, Prime Ministers Award shortlisting 2009. Timber Trades Journal finalist for timber engineering. Wood Awards Oct. 2010 for ‘Best Use of British Timber’ Newbattle Abbey College bridge

·         Main professional agenda – developing rural engineering infrastructure solutions to open up the countryside for the improvement of the health of the nation. Contributed all technical information for SNH publication ‘Path Bridges’

·         Current motivations – calculating and reducing carbon emissions of structures- introducing sustainable structures to the public road network- passing on knowledge to young engineers through guest lectures at universities – running bridge inspection courses- refereeing journal papers -continuing my work in timber engineering - introducing appropriate principal inspections and load assessments for rural structures on a consultancy basis.