Nick Brindley, or Brinners to his friends, is our Projects Facilitator, he joined #TeamPA in 1988 on a trial basis working on the shopfloor, 33 years later we’re delighted to say he’s still with us and very much part of #TeamPA.
Let’s find out about his 33 years at PA.
We started by asking Nick to tell us a little bit about his roles during this time.
It started off with Anthony Penn taking a chance on me when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do once I left school.
So, in many ways I owe a lot of gratitude to Anthony for where I am today. I had intended on following my father into farming, but bad hay fever quickly saw an end to that idea.
When I started at PA, I got the opportunity to spend time in various departments – the cutting room, machine shop, assembly, stores and design office and it soon became apparent that the shopfloor wasn’t where I belonged!
I then went on to work in various departments, Bills of Materials, Purchasing, Tool design and have now been a member of the Projects Team since 2005. I think the experience of working in all the different departments has given me a good understanding of the way things are done and what issues each department can experience. One key thing to achieving positive results is that it takes perseverance and commitment.
What’s the best thing about working at PA?
This is a difficult one as there have been so many highlights over the years. It would be difficult to single out one thing, PA has been a massive part of my life for most of my life. There must be something I keep coming to work for – maybe it’s the people!
I work in the Projects Team and the team are always on hand to offer help and support at any time. There are a lot of people throughout PA that I deal with daily that I can rely on for support and advice. I would say that even though there have been many changes in personnel over the years, there are a lot of good people at PA that help to make PA a great place to work.
Who if anyone do you look up to / have learnt the most from / find the most helpful at PA?
I have worked with so many great people over the years it would be impossible to name one person.
What’s the biggest change you have seen over the years at PA?
Over the years, as the business has grown and developed, the speed of processing orders has improved. Growth and advances in technology must be the biggest change. When I first started at PA designs were done on drawing boards not computers, bills of materials, works and purchase orders were all hand-written and we posted or faxed orders but where we are with technology now is just incredible.
And then, of course, there’s the technological advances in the machines we supply today and moving towards in the future, there are so many exciting possibilities.
Jo Porter, Projects Manager commented, “ It’s fair to say that Nick does an awesome job. Every team needs a Brinners!”