Nearly one year ago, I wrote a proposal for the BCF Board suggesting we build our own digital ‘Careers Hub’, to promote opportunities in our industry and help recruit a new wave of talent for the coatings, printing inks and wallcoverings industries. Since then, we’ve consulted with our members, designed a logo, built a website, and most recently made three videos to feature on the hub and social media that help answer a question we frequently get from students – what is a career in coatings?
The videos feature four talented individuals that work for BCF member companies and were filmed and edited by our in-house talent – our Marketing Executive Abbie Dryburgh. Throughout four days, we had a great time up North learning more about our member companies and the people behind their success.
The first stop on our tour was HMG Paints in Manchester, where we spent the day with Gracienne Ikin learning about her and what she does in her role as ‘Marketing & Communications Executive’. Gracienne’s role is varied with copywriting, social media and even photography responsibilities. Like mine and Abbie’s work lives at BCF, not one day is the same! A big part of Gracienne’s job is in writing and coordinating Award submissions, and HMG were the winners of our very own (and first ever) Corporate Social Responsibility Award. Thanks to Gracienne and the whole team at HMG for showing us around.
Next up, we spent some time at Whitford in Runcorn where we met Adam Stanley who works as a Development Chemist. Adam had an unusual route into the coatings industry, doing a Master’s degree in Chemistry with a year in an industry first and joined Whitford straight out of University. Adam helps develop fluoropolymer based coatings in his role but also gets to travel internationally and meet customers. Also at Whitford, we met Kieran Parker who works as a Colour Matcher for the company. His name may ring a bell; as Kieran won our Student of the Year Award in 2018 for the modules, he’s completed with our Coatings Training Institute. Kieran initially found his way into the industry through an apprenticeship and has a unique talent and a true eye for colour (Abbie and I thought we also did, but after learning more from Kieran about colour matching, we’ve decided to stick to our day jobs!). Thanks to Adam and Kieran for participating, and to Whitford for hosting us.
Finally, we headed over to Rochdale to spend some time with Richard Duckworth, Managing Director for Inktech. Richard was virtually born into printing inks, with his father managing the company before him and a family history rooted in the industry. What we particularly enjoyed in speaking to Richard, was how he focused mainly on the company’s success as a team. Thanks to Richard and the whole team at Inktech for welcoming us so warmly.
You can learn more about Gracienne, Adam, Kieran and Richard when we launch our video profiles alongside the careers hub in March.
We are scheduling a third round of filming in the Summer with members – if you would like to participate and be featured on the Careers Hub, please do get in touch with me at [email protected].