It would be easy to jump straight to my career in sealing but sometimes a little preamble can say a lot, maybe it will resonate with you, the reader.

I am old enough to have gone through the 11 plus and onto Grammar School, not one of my life’s successes. I didn’t have a clear direction where I expected my career to develop but a terrible memory closed down many avenues while a brain that could resolve problems meant I was stronger in maths and physics (and fixing things). In 1969, at the age of 16, I escaped school to begin life as an apprentice with British Rail, travelling from my home near Manchester to Crewe every day until day release at Stockport College spared me one early rise. After a year I continued my apprenticeship in Manchester and continued college.

5 years after starting work I was a time served mechanical and electrical fitter, but I knew a life that included lifting cast iron brake blocks while dodging oil and worse dripping from above was not my future. A further 4 years saw me graduate in mechanical engineering and, as BR started one of their regular restructures, I left them and entered the world of mechanical seals.

What is a Mechanical Seal?

My first interview with Flexibox Ltd didn’t start well, I had been sent by an agency for a sales job but the sales manager had as little interest in me being in his team as I did in sales. Fortunately, an interview with the engineering manager was hastily arranged and a few weeks later I joined as a Research and Development Engineer, still not really knowing what a mechanical seal was.

The team mostly comprised engineering graduates straight out of university, so when the test laboratory manager left six months later, I was asked to stand in. Six months later I was offered the role full time but declined, I could see it wasn’t for me. After four years in R&D, plus a further year designing special seals, I ventured into a more commercial world as International Projects Co-ordinator.  What a change, from a role working on, relatively, long term projects I stepped into a world of international liaison, with people needing answers in hours not weeks.

Then followed a period of ‘contracts problem resolver’, essentially making peace with customers whose orders had been badly delayed. This was one of the most satisfying jobs I had, taking a serious commercial issue, then finding a quick and satisfactory solution. It is reputation forming.

Ten years into my time with Flexibox, I was asked to cover for a colleague who was going on secondment to our office in Japan, as he returned to the UK, I went on secondment to Houston to manage design of a new product and support business development. Many more days and weeks in Texas resulted from a legislative drive to reduce emissions from process plants and I spent four years as Market Development Manager, managing the ‘zero emissions sealing’ project and providing technical and marketing management for special projects and business developments. Business trips to the USA, Scandinavia, Europe, and sometimes beyond, become more and more frequent.

At this point life took a big turn as the company was taken over by John Crane, my next six years was spent, initially, supporting integration of two similar product ranges and then managing a team producing technical and marketing information.

Time never stood still for long and a few years later my role extended to include managing a specialist team providing new and innovative seal solutions, managing test facilities across multiple sites and managing the Regional Liaison programme – providing head office support to offices in other countries. For me it required a lot of work in Finland, and in latter years Sweden and Australia.

A short stint as New Product Development Manager followed before I ‘engineered’ a return to a combined engineering and marketing role as Global Product Manager. This involved seal lifecycle management and leading cross functional teams, ensuring a complete support package for all of our companies in the UK and abroad. At this time, I also became involved in update of the API (American Petroleum Institute) seal standard 682 and spent time training John Crane employees in the standard. Global training and presenting technical papers at international conferences was an ongoing theme through much of my career. Business trips extended from the USA and Europe across to Singapore, China and other Asian locations.

In 2015 I retired but, three years later, accepted the part time role as Technical Director with the ESA. In this role I provide technical support to member companies and compile ‘organisation neutral’ documentation for use by all. Company neutral support is particularly important when it is related to legislation and standards compliance, I find this aspect comes naturally because, while in my full-time career, my roles were almost always international. For me, providing support to colleagues, whether technical or marketing, is what I enjoy most and nothing beats a sincere thank you from them.

From leaving school with a minimum of ‘o’ levels I retired as a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical engineers and with great memories of meeting and working with people across all continents.

If there are takeaways from all of this, I would say they are:

• Never stop believing in your future, even if it doesn’t seem to be heading where you want it to
• Never think that just because you are qualified in one area of business you can’t succeed in other departments
• Don’t imagine that just because a product doesn’t sound exciting that it won’t provide you with a great career. Life is what you make it. Welcome to the world of seals – whatever they are.

Peter Bowden, ESA