Flying high

Summary
¦ Brian’s first timber industry job was with preservative manufacturer Catomance.
¦ He was with Norbord for 13 years, becoming operations manager.
¦ He joined James Jones & Sons as timber systems business development manager in 1998.
¦ He has 450 hours microlight flying time.

Born in Glasgow, the son of peripatetic parents, Brian Robertson, general manager of James Jones & Sons Ltd, Timber Systems Division, spent his early childhood in England before his family settled for a time in North Berwick, where he completed his schooling.

When he left school he had no clear idea of what he wanted to do. However, as a self-confessed romantic, with a technical bent, his next step was to go to Leith Nautical College in Edinburgh, where he started training as a radio operator. He loved the idea of talking to people all over the world.

Despite getting excellent grades and much to his tutors’ and parents’ disappointment, Brian left Leith Nautical after a year. He became a trainee building inspector with Edinburgh District Council’s Building Control Department. While gaining a solid grounding in building techniques was to prove both interesting and valuable to Brian, he found working for a local authority “soul destroying”.

Situations vacant

“No-one made a decision – ever! I knew I needed a change, I just didn’t know what. It was funny: remember when fish and chips used to come wrapped in newspaper? Well, one night mine were wrapped in the ‘vacancies’ page where I saw an advert for a technical sales representative for a timber preservative company and thought, why not?”

Having successfully interviewed for the job, Brian moved to Hertfordshire to begin a happy three years or so with timber preservative manufacturer Catomance Ltd. The company distributed to northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which was perfect for Brian, as he loves travelling – sometimes he notches up over 1,000 miles a week within the UK.

After a couple of years he moved back to Scotland, to VES Preservation Ltd in Aberdeen. At the tender age of 27 and after just one year with the company, Brian was made executive director. This was where he got his first real taste of ‘man management’ – and discovered he enjoyed it and was good at it. His career was on the up and up and he was soon offered a job with Norbord Highland in Inverness.

Over the next 13 years he worked his way up from a quality control supervisor to technical manager, ending up as operations manager, the number two position in the plant.

“OSB was new to Europe,” he said. “We were producing a brand new product in a brand new factory and we were producing the best OSB in the world. It was an exciting time.

“Our product quality was down to Dr John Dinwoodie of BRE who ensured we produced only the best we could. He was my mentor – and my tormentor!”

One of Brian’s major achievements during “the Norbord years” was chairing the TC112 Working Group, which defined the European Standard for OSB (EN300).

“This Standard took 10 years to develop; only 18 months to prepare in my Committee; but then eight-and-a-half years to get through the political ‘BS’ and get published,” he said, with feeling.

This was also a fulfilling time personally, as Brian met and married Maggie, and together they started their family. Their daughter Teresa is now a teacher while Nikki, who is working towards a PhD in acoustics, works for Edinburgh Napier’s Centre for Timber Engineering.

During his time with Norbord, Brian travelled extensively through North America, and was tempted by – but never succumbed to – various career offers. Commitments to a growing family kept him in Scotland.

I-joist development

In 1997 Brian saw an opportunity to enter the I-joist market with a British manufactured product. He wrote his own business plan and, after a couple of unsuccessful pitches, approached John Kissock, then joint managing director of James Jones & Sons Ltd, who immediately saw the potential. In 1998 Brian joined James Jones’s Timber Systems Division as business development manager.

“John and I were a great team: he worked the morning shift, I worked the night shift. We were taking on the might of Trus Joist Mac-millan – it was David and Goliath all the way!”

Now that Trus Joist has exited the UK market JJI-Joists share the pole position with Finnforest – a source of great pride for Brian.

The recession has, of course, been very tough for engineered timber, with its heavy reliance on the newbuild market.

“The recession has been just awful,” said Brian. “It was, and still is a difficult time for the timber and construction industry. On the positive side though, we have already rehired a few of the guys who were laid off – which is a real testament to the company. I am so proud of everyone here, we have all really toughed it out and as a result are a much stronger and closer team which can only help us going forward in the future.”

It’s not all work and no play for Brian though – he holds a private pilot’s licence for microlights and owns his own plane. He got his first taste for flying in 2001 when he swapped some British Grand Prix tickets his wife had bought him as a birthday present for microlight lessons. The exhilaration instantly won Brian over and he has been dedicated to the sport ever since. In 2004 he won his class in the Round Scotland Microlight Rally and came third overall – even though he had to land on Helensburgh golf course when the skies closed in.

“Microlighting is amazing! Flying is one of the best experiences I have ever had. The adrenaline that goes through you as you take off is like nothing else. I have a reasonable amount of flying time under my belt – around 450 hours. I’ve flown from Inverness to the French Alps twice now and survive to tell the tale – just!”