My CV

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Physics – University of Strathclyde

UK Meteorological Office – Initial Forecasting Course – 1975

UK Meteorological Office – Advanced Forecasting Course – 1978

Quality Assurance Auditing (ISO900) – 1992

Institute of Quality Assurance – Quality Assurance Management (A3) –Aberdeen College 1993

Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society – FRMetS

Royal Meteorological Society, Chartered Meteorologist – CMet

Employment History

1973-1983 UK Meteorological Office

Forecasting at a wide variety of locations, civil and military airfields as well as city Weather Centres. Briefing aircrew and giving mass briefings to RAF personnel. Doing regular broadcasts on local radio and extensive liaison with local authorities, the farming and fishing communities and the general public. Composing and taking responsibility for forecast advice to all these users.

1983-2005 Oceanroutes latterly WNI Oceanroutes – Aberdeen

1983-1991

Weather forecasting and customer service involvement which may be broadly split into three parts;

Oil Related – Onshore

Forecasting duties for the offshore oil industry and general marine users.  Briefing of all major oil companies around Aberdeen on a daily basis. Direct involvement in a range of engineering issues through taking part in morning and other irregular meetings concerned with the progress of a wide variety of concerns from simple rig moves to complex float-outs and other engineering projects.

Oil Related – Offshore

Liaison and forecasting duties offshore for more direct involvement with the project team. Locations involved were throughout the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea. Projects include the jacking-up of the Ekofisk Field, several field installations (Conoco V Fields, Morecambe Bay extensions etc) and involvement with new drillings West of Shetland and off the North Cape of Norway.

Civil and Media

A wide variety of work for several end-users:- road-ice services for local authority roads departments, T.V. and radio forecasting including further live radio work, forecasting for Railtrack and British Gas Distribution, and several other smaller customers.

1994-2005 Studies Manager

This involved responsibility for the external consultancy service to existing customers for our other services and independent clients making use of the consultancy alone. It also involved within the company, general scientific back up and an internal consultancy, on a range of topics to back up company activity.

The main areas of work included:-

• Involvement in a consultative role with many court/arbitration cases concerned with ship loss, demurrage, offshore engineering matters, cargo damage etc. This involved all levels of service from simple report submission to extended attendance at arbitration proceedings and close liaison with solicitors, Q.C.s and the other expert witnesses involved.
• Consultancy work for a Local Authority Road Department concerning the setting up of a new approach to winter road maintenance. This entailed long involvement with the customer and site visits to set up a very fine forecasting model to match the customer’s concept of a G.P.S guided salting method that would guarantee an audit trail for the service. The routes were analysed and salient points were selected to represent their geographical characteristics and these were then used in a fully automated forecast process.
• The internal development (but not coding) of a highly local temperature model which has a whole range of local position inputs together with area wide forecast inputs drawn from the general forecast model data and which produces highly site-specific hourly temperature outputs.
• Consultancy work on design level wind for a prominent motorway bridge.
• Design level consultancy for offshore structures and pipelines. These either undertaken independently or as part of a team with other Oceanroutes offices.
• A range of civil forensic consultancy in connection with scene of crime investigations.

1999-2005 Manager Client Services and Studies Services

This involved adding overall responsibility for Client Services within the company.

The Routing Department work may be summarised as follows:-

• Responsibility for a team of five involved with the client relations side of the European sector of the world’s largest ship routing company. Reporting to the Managing Director on its operation.
• Recruitment of staff and responsibility for day to day running of the department.
• Liaison with headquarters in California on all aspects of their service to our client base.
• Responsibility for a wide range of more detailed enquiries from the clients. These included questions of ship speed and consumption, charter party descriptions and the many pitfalls they can contain, helping clients when they are faced by the “posturing” initial tactics that are common in the shipping world when there is any threat of resort to legal action and a range of lesser queries concerning all manner of non-routing and non-meteorological aspects of ship operation which we are drawn into. This, and the following aspect, is closely related to studies work.
• When our clients were involved in legal action over some aspect of speed and consumption or other claims, helping them in arbitration present their case most effectively through liaison with their legal team. This again has merged with previously detailed consultation work quoted under the Studies section above. It involves consultation on matters of speed and consumption, Charter Party interpretation and monitoring arbitration fashion as far as is possible for clients.

2005-2016 Aerospace & Marine International (UK) – Forensic & Science Manager

The main areas of work were:-

1. Overseeing the operational forecasting and ship routing aspects of a global operation;
2. Completion of reports in response to a wide range of customer requests from simple climatology studies to reports to arbitration proceedings and close liaison with solicitors, Q.C.s and the other expert witnesses involved;
3. Aiding ship routing clients in disputes involving speed and consumption, demurrage, unsafe berth issues etc.
4. Appearing in court in support of reports done on shipping and civil incidents at arbitration and court level. Appearing at Arbitrations and the Commercial Court in London as well as several other courts/enquiries.

In addition to the main forensic reports I have done many other full reports for non-legal clients and also other reports for possible arbitration. I have been involved in many hundreds of speed and consumption disputes between owners and charterers.