Moving up the Ladder

Many of you will already be familiar with Dr David Towlson who, until last month, was our Lead Tutor. We are delighted to announce that David has recently accepted the position of Director of Training for RRC and will be playing a fundamental role in managing the business into the future.

Here, David gives us a brief insight into his career so far and lets us in on his plans for the future.

I’d like to think that I planned my career but the reality is rather different. Sure, there were times when I took control and seized an opportunity but sometimes I just bided my time, kept my head down and appeared rather older the next time I looked in the mirror. Some moves were purely reactive; the desire to avoid being railroaded down a particular path that suited my employer but not me.

In some respects it doesn’t matter what you do, provided you find your job fulfilling. I always dreamed of working in a chocolate factory but, I am told, this only brings fleeting enjoyment and, longterm, a weight problem. But we all need a little money to spend on someone we like (like ourselves), so sometimes we have to sacrifice enjoyment. Money and fulfilment is a heady combination.

A career in health and safety was, for me, a bit of an accident. Like many of my generation, I was seduced by the dark side – the chemical industry. We were all told by the government that we needed more scientists, manufacturing was booming and so on. I took Chemistry at University and, probably against my better judgment, stayed on to complete a PhD in physical chemistry. In retrospect, studying for the PhD was possibly ill-advised but I suppose it did reduce my youthful arrogance, help me appreciate the limitations of science and attract a wife (though that may have been coincidental – please don’t read too much into that last point).

Fresh from PhD studies, my first job was in 1990 (or possibly 1900) conducting pure research for a chemical company. I was looking at organic-inorganic hybrid polymers and biomimetics (I wouldn’t bother looking that up or being impressed; it is, after all, rather dull). I don’t think I was terribly successful. The research was perhaps a little too “blue skies”. I think I craved something with a little more immediate application.

Chemical work is, of course, heavily regulated by health and safety legislation, so it was natural that I had a good deal of contact with such things. At the same time, in addition to my normal duties of swanning around the labs looking intelligent (that’s the only reason I wear spectacles) I took on the role of Departmental Safety Manager. This involved general health and safety practice (risk assessments, inspections, COSHH assessments, etc.). My employer had already made the policy decision at the time to send just about everyone (apart from the cleaners) for basic health and safety training. I was put through the NEBOSH National General Certificate which, I think I am supposed to say, I enjoyed a great deal. Well, actually I did find it illuminating and, during the coffee and toilet breaks, quite refreshing.

I decided from these studies that a career in health and safety might be a good move. I could see the research job market disappearing and I was starting to find the lack of immediate application a little dull. Some people realise that chemistry can be boring much earlier in life. I was looking for a positive career move and health and safety seemed a natural and enjoyable side step. It would also utilise my chemical background. I was prepared to retrain and start at the ground floor because I just couldn’t see myself continuing in my current career.

To this end I decided to study for the NEBOSH Diploma – the original one, even before the 2-part Diploma (yes it was that long ago). I funded this myself so it had to be distance learning through RRC; my employer wouldn’t pay for this extravagance. My studies were all in my own time. It was very challenging to fit it all in as we had just had a new baby boy whose talent was crying all night. It was not pleasant at the time but I have almost forgiven him 14 years later.

Looking back, my experiences as a student with RRC have really helped to inform the decisions I now make as Director of Training for the company. I appreciate the difficulties of fitting in studying with maintaining a work and home life and I intend to work hard to develop programmes that are flexible to ensure that they fit around real people, rather than the other way round.

I eventually achieved the Diploma through RRC and was then actively seeking internal moves to full-time health and safety positions. There were, however, few such jobs internally.

Things moved on in the chemical industry and cutbacks reduced the need for large research departments. As it happened I managed to secure an internal move to a development department before the axe fell. This was far more applied, involving pilot plant work and full-scale trials. Disappointingly it didn’t initially come with any specific health and safety responsibilities. Sometimes you just have to take what is on offer and bide your time. However, during my time there I actively sought and took on additional, specific health and safety responsibilities to add to my experience. I got involved in all sorts of things at that time, including dangerous goods transportation and product safety. Eventually, I did get formal recognition for this – again as a departmental safety manager.

Meanwhile, I continued to seek full- time health and safety positions. Internal full- time health and safety positions began to dwindle further. The central health and safety function was made to pay its own way by charging for its services on a per use basis. This, of course, meant that no-one used them and so their fate was sealed.

I spotted an opportunity in the EHS department of another chemical company and took the leap. Initially, I had specific responsibility for product safety and dangerous goods but also had a wider range of health and safety responsibilities (it was a small EHS department). It utilised a good deal of my chemical and health and safety experiences in previous jobs. This wasn’t necessarily my perfect job but it was certainly progress in the right direction.

I became more involved in dangerous goods transportation issues and chemical safety (including safety data sheets, marketing and use restrictions and REACH regulation), particularly European Directives since my role was expanded to cover European issues. The role also included management of emergency response (as a duty manager and incident controller) and other more general health and safety issues.

Because I was actively looking to expand my health and safety interests and keep myself current, in 1998 I successfully applied to RRC to become an associate tutor. The role was to help encourage other distance-learning students through the RRC programmes. Around the same time I also became an examiner for NEBOSH. Because of the low pay involved, this was almost charity work.

I enjoyed this so much that in 2005 I accepted the position of full-time Lead Tutor with RRC.

I believe very much in life- long learning. Of course this happens in practice all the time, whether it is planned or not, but it is better to plan it – it makes you appear to be so much more well thought out. Lots of professional organisations, like IOSH, insist on it, so it is difficult to avoid in any case. I thought it was important to continue expanding my skills through training. Although I had around 8 years’ experience as a trainer, in 2006 I took the step to complete a basic teacher training programme (City and Guilds 7407 Stage 2).

In all honesty, my initial desire to complete this course came more out of a need to comply with the increasing requirements of professional bodies for formal qualifications in this area than a genuine feeling of need. As an experienced trainer, I felt pretty confident about my training skills and always (well almost) received excellent feedback from my (carefully selected) students. In retrospect, however, I found myself agreeing with Donald Rumsfeld:

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”

Well, this is how I felt once I began my basic teacher training. I thought I had a wide variety of approaches and techniques available to me when it came to training (and indeed I did) but completing the course made me aware of just how much more I could do to improve the experiences of my students and help make the learning process more active and enjoyable.

Following successful completion of my basic teacher training, I have now enrolled on the next stage, a Certificate in Post-Compulsory Education and Training which will keep me busy until next summer.

Whilst such a level of teacher training may not always be required, it did highlight to me the importance of honing these skills. Many of us are required to “train” others – perhaps by way of informal toolbox talks or more formal training sessions. Your ability to do this well, however, is based on much more than an expertise in the particular technical knowledge. Unless you are able to pass this information on clearly and succinctly, your training will never be as successful as it could be.

We may all have years of experience in our particular industries and the knowledge we have gained in these areas is clearly invaluable. But we may not always know just how much we don’t know until someone draws it to our attention. That is why I believe that formal, systematic training has such an important part to play in continuing professional development. This knowledge encouraged me to introduce our new CIEH Professional Trainer Certificate to our course portfolio which will help to spread these skills to a wider audience. Though it is only a basic qualification, it is designed to equip prospective trainers with relevant essential skills and provides a good foundation for further development. It is also useful for seasoned trainers to refresh, consolidate and formally recognise their skills.

I am delighted to have been made Director of Training for RRC and hope to be able to move the company on still further in its development of innovative new ideas. Most Boards are now aware that the final responsibility for health and safety lies with them and are therefore attaching more importance to it than ever before. There are also many more opportunities for EHS professionals at Board level than ever before but this does not necessarily mean that the day- to- day work of an EHS professional is getting any easier.

If nothing else, we fight the daily battle against those who believe that health and safety is just “political correctness gone mad!”. One effective way of doing this is by developing an industry of switched-on individuals who work within the realistic constraints of the business. That means not stopping innovation and efficiency in its tracks but looking for innovative solutions. We all know, of course, that in reality good EHS professionals do this anyway but convincing others is not always easy!

So what about the future then? Well, as ever, our ambitions are huge and we continue to have our sights set on world domination! We have worked hard over the last 12 months to increase our product range (developing several CIEH programmes as well as a range of short, focused courses and IOSH e-learning courses) but I am keen on expanding this range still further over the next few months.

I am also working hard to harness new ways of learning. I can’t promise to make revision easy or pleasurable, but we can develop methods that help make it as painless as possible, including revision webinars which allow you to benefit from the process of a revision workshop without leaving the comfort of your home or office (or, more importantly, wasting valuable revision time travelling on tubes, buses or the M25!).

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