42 APPOINTMENTS & NEWS Marmox: The fi rst 25 years
B
orn just a couple of years after The Battle of Britain, when Harry Parsons left school at the age of 16 to begin a course for aspiring
site managers at the Brixton School of Building in South London, the country’s priorities were still focused on replacing the housing and infrastructure destroyed during the war and although he has always been a very practical person, the maths and science he learnt in the late fi fties made this young man’s mind very receptive to new technologies, while he also harboured ambitions for adventure and foreign travel. I was with Costain when a story in their house magazine about the projects overseas took my interest: which he chose to accept. That unexpected opportunity, led to him spending the next 14 years in Nigeria, initially running the ‘small contracts department’ though the euphemistic title covered anything which could be supervised by one Ex-Pat. Harry refl ected: “It was the broadest and best education I could have had. I realised I wasn’t equipped for UK building sites but he then spotted a vacancy being advertised by a coatings company for a Middle East manager.
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My patch, covered during a series of three-week jaunts, stretched from Turkey in the North down to Yemen and as far east as Bangladesh this gave me the confi dence to start my own business. That step came when I fl ew into Cairo one night and was asked by my local agent to meet one Dr. Kamal the next morning. It turned out the learned doctor owned multiple businesses and showed me a number of products including a polyester resin and the coated XPS insulation which has come to be known as Multiboard” Harry started Marmox from his garage in
the spring of 2000. 2005 saw him move from the fi rst small Rochester offi ce into the 4,000 sq. ft. Laker Road premises before, in 2010, the company took over its current Caxton House HQ off ering quadruple the storage for pallets and now accommodating 16 staff . The early years saw Showerlay and Soundboard added to the range, then Thermoblock proved a landmark in 2010 by tackling cold-bridging. Innovation continues apace with the A1 rated Fireboard introduced two years ago and a fi reproof version of the fl oor-wall Thermoblock now awaiting BBA approval.
Harry Parsons
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