A Post Schooldays’ Biography

 

 

Professional Training at Marconi Radar                                  1963-1973
Four year thin sandwich electronics Student Apprenticeship followed by development laboratory experience leading to Corporate Membership of the IEE at 27.  Culminated in leadership of a new surveillance radar trials team.

Married Pru 12 August 1967, 5 weeks after graduating – have now been married 41 years!

Giles was born in 1969 and Mark followed in 1971, so they are now 39 and 38 respectively.  Giles has done all sorts of things from Theatre Management in Rhyll and Eastbourne to Head of Communications and IT for MoD in our embassy in Washington.  He bought a t-shirt printing business in New Hampshire USA 3 years ago, tripling its turnover but sadly it has now ceased trading, a casualty of the "credit crunch"!  Mark is an actor, currently in Casualty on BBC1 and Wire in the Blood, with Robson Green, on ITV1, also shown on BBC America in the USA.

Moved to Crawley in 1973 and Sharpethorne, near East Grinstead, in 1975

 Junior Management at Redifon Telecommunications Ltd (former name) 1973-1975
Group Leader of a customer funded development team, specialising in radio interception, with additional responsibility to promote further sales.

 Middle Management at Rediffusion Radio Systems Ltd                  1975-1982
Chief Engineer and then Systems Manager, responsible for 20 rising to 40 professional engineers.  Project responsibility for a contract for both development and production, each valued at over £ 0.5M. Subsequently appointed Executive Chief Engineer, responsible for 60 rising to 120 technical staff - predominantly professionals.  Budget responsibility for £ 1.5M.  Deputised for the Technical Director.  Additionally responsible for selling customer funded development services.

 Senior Management at Rediffusion Radio Systems Ltd                   1983-1986
Appointed Sales and Marketing Manager, a member of the Company Management Committee.  Responsibilities included all Sales (Home and Overseas), Public Relations, Customer Training, Sales Administration and Systems Engineering and the definition of all new Private Venture development.  Achieved improvement in Company order performance of 28% in the first year, exceeded order budget (£ 12M) in second year - the first time for a decade.

 General Management at Rediffusion Radio Systems Ltd- New Business Start-up 1986-1988
Appointed General Manager, Redifon Applied Technology - responsible for creating a new autonomous business, on a green field site, offering a custom R & D service.  Commenced fee paying business 1 April 1986 with 6 new staff at Leatherhead.  Grew to 17 staff in first year, exceeded performance targets; Orders £ 894K (budget £ 400K) and Sales £ 421K (budget £ 325K).  The second and third years generated profitable growth.  The fourth year produced a contribution of over £ 400K from Sales of £1.5M

 Management Buy-out (from Rediffusion) and turn-round at Redifon    1988-1990
Invited to join MBO team as Engineering Director, retaining business accountability for Redifon Applied Technology but also responsible for the line management of all engineering matters at Crawley.  Played major role in MBO team which achieved turn-round from £1M loss prior to buy-out to break-even in the first year.  Carried out slimming operation on Crawley engineering resources, improved development time and money performance parameters by over 25%.

Redifon Director and Divisional Manager, Radio Systems Division       1990-1991
Appointed Divisional Manager for Radio Systems Division with profit and loss responsibility. Turnover £10M, 160 staff, including Production, Sales, Development, Systems and Quality.  Exceeded first year‑end performance expectations by 10%.  Developed Company-wide computerisation strategy.  Project Director for the successful implementation of the resultant PC/LAN based Management Information System.

 Redifon Group Director and General Manager Redifon SPT Ltd          1991-1992
Appointed General Manager following the acquisition of SPT Ltd.  Led the team responsible for evaluating SPT Ltd and selecting key staff.  Managed the transfer of the business to Crawley, its integration with the Radio Systems Division and the closure of the SPT Billericay site.  All this was achieved in less than six weeks.  Responsible for changing the SPT Tollesbury site from a cost centre to a highly successful business.  Turnover of the new integrated business was £15M, with 202 staff.  This acquisition produced an increase of 21% in turnover per employee, which created the potential for a dramatic increase in profit in the succeeding year.

Stabbed in the back by fellow director, the third of four to suffer the same fate – didn’t see it coming!  Spent a year looking for suitable employment; eventually moved to Siemens Plessey at a much reduced salary but recovered after a year!

Moved to Ringwood, Hampshire in 1993, working in Christchurch, Dorset.

 Head of Strategic Communications Projects, CDI, BAE SYSTEMS          1993 – 2002
Briefly Marketing Manager, HF Systems, then appointed General Manager for a changing portfolio of businesses, including Special Projects, Combat Net Radio, Acoustic Weapon Location, HF and Satellite Communications Systems, local manufacture of Lockheed Martin electronics for the UK Apache Attack Helicopter Programme, Customer Support, with P & L responsibility for £40 - 50M turnover.  Direct responsibility for 180 specialist staff.

Other responsibilities included managing the interface with Roke Manor Research and an appointment as a Change Agent, initiating, promoting, advocating and implementing change in business processes, particularly in the Systems Engineering Process, across the whole of the then Siemens Plessey Systems (2,500 staff).

This period saw the changes in ownership from Siemens Plessey to BAe, to BAE Systems and the incorporation of Marconi.  For me this included having a team at Basildon, and  overseeing the closure of the manufacturing site at Plessey, Ilford – very sad.

 Major surgery in 1999, explanation, including gruesome photos at www.hugh.letheren.org.  Led to 3 months away from work, 6 months in all before everything was back to normal.

Retired at 57 in July 2002, a bit earlier than intended.  Management musical chairs, politics, ageism, my bloody mindedness, all played their parts.  Despite all that I can thoroughly recommend retirement!

 I never spent more than a couple of weeks overseas but have been to loads of places either selling, providing technical support or supervising the project management of local manufacture.

Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Zimbabwe, Sweden, Denmark, in the USA: Dallas, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Mesa (Az),  Melbourne (Fl), Orlando (Fl), the latter two many times to cooperate with Harris Corp and Lockheed Martin respectively during 1995 - 2002.

 Giles and Catherine produced our two grandchildren, Ellie in 2004 and Dylan in 2006.