Ian started his 39 years career in the military aerospace business as an apprentice technician with the Ministry of Defence (MOD) at the Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough. After his apprenticeship he was promoted to Professional Technology Officer and worked for the research and development teams in the Attack and Defensive weapons design offices.

In 1988 he left the MoD and joined British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) working for the Eurofighter Chief Engineers office where he became responsible for integration of Typhoon Structures, Systems engineering activities and technical project control, this included supporting the design and development of high value Equipment’s including the integration of Supplier’s, in-house and Eurofighter Partner Company (EPC) aircraft design and assembly activities.

In 1996 he joined the Systems and Service division as Project / Engineering manager and was responsible for the Training solution development and subsequent Training delivery of various international and UK Aircrew and Groundcrew Customer training programmes, which included the specification and acquisition of desk top, high end simulators and other training aids.

After nearly 20 years in the aerospace training domain he then returned to his manufacturing routes and was appointed to mobilise and manage the transfer of manufacturing aircraft final assembly capability into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as part of the UK commitment to support the Saudi Vision 2030.

He has extensive experience of living and working in Saudi Arabia and has undertaken several short term deployments internationally. He has also written and co-presented Training related papers at ITEC and the Royal Aeronautical Society, and more recently became a published author.

He took early retirement in 2019 and is now seeking a more relax life as a part time Sewing machine mechanic, Management Consultant & he actively supports ETSA.  More recently he has been supporting NHS sewing groups with machine repairs throughout the pandemic and has taken time out to write, illustrated and published his first book in concert with Artizan Training Ltd.