Business News President’s Focus
By Martyn Jupp, newly elected president of Chase Chamber. He launched his business Veriserv (formerly Electrotest Services) in 1991. At the time, he was a professional motorcycle rider, having become the no 1 250cc rider in the UK in the previous year. Martyn began his career with an engineering apprenticeship at GKN in 1978, and in this article talks about why it is a great way to get started in business – and maybe lead to great things.
Skills and a skilled workforce is one thing that really motivates me. I am what you would call an ‘old school’ apprentice. I can’t think of a better
introduction to the world of work than being an apprentice. Of course I had all the old tricks pulled on me, like being told to ask for a long wait from the storeman and waiting in the corner of the stores for nearly an hour before telling me he hadn’t got one! I was earning while I was learning, going to college one day and two evenings per week to do my ONC and HNC. I learned everything about the business from the bottom up and so had most of the board of directors and managers who were time served apprentices. This method of
training on the job while continuing with the academic tuition at college was in my opinion the best route for me and many others. I believe passionately that this is
the way training should be done today for the majority of people, especially that now you can do a degree as an apprentice. I want students to know that academia is not the only answer and the old adage ‘Train for a Trade’ is as relevant today as it has ever been. Somewhere along the line
apprenticeships went out of fashion and were seen as a second rate way of advancing, this has to change and I feel it is, although slowly. As an Enterprise Advisor for
schools, I can see that schools are generally only interested in
‘Somewhere along the line apprenticeships went out of fashion and were seen as a second rate way of advancing, this has to change and I feel it is, although slowly’
students who continue with them into sixth form and beyond. This has to change and I will be
doing my utmost to see this occurs. We have heard that many jobs will lost to robots in the near future, but it will be a long time before a robot can fit a central heating system, wire a house, build a house or do any other of the main trades. Here are just a few former
apprentices who haven’t done badly: JCB chairman Lord Bamford,
worth £3.15bn. Bamford started one of Britain’s most successful family-
owned businesses. He started out as an apprentice at agricultural equipment firm Massey Ferguson. Laurence Graff. He founded Graff Diamonds, worth £3bn after becoming a jewellery apprentice at the age of 15. Entrepreneur John Caudwell,
who started Phones 4 U, worth £1.5bn before he sold the company in 2006. His career began as an engineering apprentice at the Michelin factory in Stoke-on-Trent. Let’s make apprenticeships great
again! March 2018 CHAMBERLINK 11
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