Paul Jackson’s inspirational story. Beginning with a career through the successes and decline of Lola. The dark days of receivership and redundancy. Paul’s tireless efforts and belief in the company’s values and people. A new company, Forward Composites, rising from the ashes with Paul Jackson and Ed Collings at the helm. Finding new clients, surviving a fire and looking forward to a prosperous future. A summary of the story as I heard it at the Cambridge Network event at the Hauser Forum on 20 May 2014.
Downfall
Paul Jackson was the last man left in a building in 2012, after having made everyone else redundant. Curious potential buyers might see the solitary figure as they peered through the door with just another lot number on it.
Paul had left school at 16 to become an apprentice pattern maker. He joined Lola, and worked his way through the ranks and engineering into management at Lola Composites, based in Huntingdon. Yet he was still passionate about what the composites part of the company and a highly trained workforce could offer, if only given a chance. Even when three sales fell through and company was put up for auction, he was looking for potential business contracts.
Resurrection
On the very day that the company were supposed to be auctioned off in April 2013, Paul took the critical step to move from employee to managing director of his own company, and bought it at the very last minute. He used his own money and finance from an equally convinced colleague, Ed Collings, and an investor brought on board.
Forward Composites was born.
Presentations to potential clients had paid off. The existing machine tooling facility for carbon fibre composites appeared convincing to Thales, producers of the Watchkeeper UAV. Forward composites secured a £3.2 million deal to assist in the construction of 16 UAVs.
Paul had kept in touch with former highly skilled employees and they returned on his invitation to build the new team.
Success
Within the first year the company was successful, having a turnover of £4.2 million. Forward Composites now employed 92 people.
In addition to Thales, clients now included Bombardier; B/E Aerospace, for whom they provided plane interiors; BAE Systems, building large-scale models; and a demo show car for Hyundai. With a twinkle in his eye, Paul Jackson commented that their carbon composites in the new Mercedes F1 engine were contributing towards Lewis Hamilton’s success in the current season.
Catastrophe
Yet it could all have gone up in smoke, when the company was hit by a major fire on 31 January 2014! Paul dashed over with the keys and building plans for the fire crews so that they could enter and deal with the fire as fast as possible.
Determined to keep the company going, Paul redirected the staff to unaffected parts of the site to continue the work. For once, the delay in receiving a major piece of machinery destined for the fire damaged hall was a godsend, ...
continued in full article at www.miltoncontact-blog.com/2014/05/how-raise-your-company-from-ashes.html
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If your company, organisation or people have stories to tell, feel free to contact me, Dr Chris Thomas, Milton Contact Ltd, [email protected], 01223 440024
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