Celebrating 25 years at MJ Abbott

After leaving school with few qualifications and fewer opportunities, I was hoping to settle with a well-known and respected company. I had a 10-minute informal chat with Michael Abbott and was given a job on the spot and told to start Monday at 6am sharp. I jumped into a van with Kevin Foster and off we travelled to Celtic Manor Golf Club where MJ Abbott were building the golf course. Within the first few months I was taught to drive dumpers, tractors, gravel carts and excavators, showing a keen interest in all of the machinery.

Around the end of 1998, whilst working at Sunningdale Golf Club installing irrigation, I saw another advert for a ‘trainee surveyor/draughtsman’. I applied for the job and soon I was working under surveyor, Nathan George, who then gave me a lot of his time and encouragement, he shared his knowledge teaching me triangulation with a measuring wheel to plot the positions of sprinklers and drainage systems, hand drawing (on tracing paper with pens) the company’s ‘proposed’ and ‘as laid’ plans, along with taking levels, setting out and planning drawings. This was before the days of GPS surveying equipment.

After a couple of years, MJ Abbott invested in its first GPS data logger and both Nathan and I enrolled in night school to learn AutoCAD over three years and, before I knew it, I had some valuable qualifications. In between the surveying, I was informally Michael’s lackey and would be sent out at any time of day or night to run errands for Michael, even having a 13 day stint in Herefordshire to carry out a borehole pump test.

By the time Michael retired, I had a better understanding of why I was being asked to visit and carry out surveys and levels and had a reasonable amount of construction experience across the range of services that we offered, enough to take on a large chunk of the local works that Michael had headed up. This was a fast and steep learning curve, supported by many of the staff around me and who are still with the company today! As time progressed and the company grew, I grew too. The company supported me throughout, and invested in further training and qualifications that were relevant to the role.

MJ Abbott Ltd is a much bigger company than when I started (I think there were fewer than 45 employees back then), but the ethos hasn’t changed one bit – you get out what you put in. I have always been brought up to believe that you work hard, stay loyal and give 100% and enjoy what you do and that’s exactly what I have done, and now 25 years later and here we are! I have worked with, and still work with, some very talented and patient people, always willing to invest time and always encouraging, for this I am very grateful.”

Having the opportunity to serve an apprenticeship enabled me to have a career that has evolved over the years and that I enjoy. As a company we have continued with our apprenticeship schemes and strive to offer the same opportunities to the younger generation.”