After an early career that included bookmaking, labouring on building sites and taxi driving, I concluded that a higher education qualification would be needed to get a career as opposed to a job. I enlisted on a HNC Building Surveying course at LJMU and 2 years in very fortunately bagged an interview with Rands in 2007.

After spending some time training with senior surveyors, I was then tasked with carrying out stock condition surveys. I spent a lot of time in the Northeast and also Yorkshire and Staffordshire with some short spells in the South and in and around London.

Back then we used PDAs to record the information supplemented by photos taken with a digital camera and stored on memory cards, which, to be fair worked quite well albeit with some office-based time to organise everything. Around 2010 we started to see some advancements in the available tech and the introduction of tablets to replace PDAs. The hardware was great, notwithstanding the limitations of batteries etc. but the real limiting factor was the new accompanying software – not so great.

The acid test is really – can the info be populated during the survey? – sadly no was the answer. A survey could take up to 30 minutes – processing the information into the device could take up to 2 hours!

After a lot of effort and frustration we very reluctantly concluded that a return to paper survey forms would be the more attractive proposition. On paper, excuse the pun, a sensible decision but in reality, a huge backward step.

Having taken such a backward step we have very consciously been trying to get ahead with all of our processes and systems ever since. One of my first curiosities in the beginning was how we actually convey the condition of the stock – we didn’t really! To my surprise there was no metric, no number, score, or rating. The result of all of the survey work culminated in a chart – quite simply, money over time. Something understood by the trained eye of the LSVT funder but very confusing for everyone else.

Our latest innovation, M3Vision, is born from the past frustrations and as such is a really exciting venture – we are getting the chance to solve all of those past headaches one by one with the very latest technology available!

I’m very grateful for every work-related experience I’ve gained and I believe our entire careers are shaped by the nuances and personal lessons we absorb in the pursuit of making a living. I’d gladly go back to any point in my working life to enjoy and relive those same things.

I learnt more about margins and timing on the racecourses, I learnt more about the construction process, tolerance and sequence, on building sites and I learnt more about people driving a taxi.

I count myself as a very lucky individual as work has never been a bad thing for me and every day provides an opportunity for job satisfaction.

You get out what you put in…

In Rudyard Kipling’s words…If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, and – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!