From Apprentice to Major Projects - Matt's Story

At Stannah, we put our progress down to our people. The generations that have worked here in the last 150 years and the people today working across the Stannah Group, together have helped to shape us as a business. We are proud to have a long history of apprenticeships and these apprentices continuing to work for Stannah throughout their career. Matt, is one of them. Matt started with Stannah 8 years ago and he says the choice seemed like an obvious one: “I have always enjoyed making things and solving problems. I wasn’t keen on pursuing the ‘natural’ route into University, I saw a Stannah advert for engineering apprentices. It was hands-on learning with recognised qualifications, and best of all you were paid! I hadn’t really heard of Stannah, but when applying I found that they supplied lifts and stairlifts to what I thought was a relatively small market. It was not until I started that I realised the full breadth of Stannah’s business includes installing, maintaining and refurbishing almost every type of lift product across the UK and worldwide with Stairlifts. I also began to realise just how many times we encounter lift products on our daily travels. I was an apprentice for four years, working within the platform lifts division. You can see a product develop in-house from conception of an idea, to design, to fabrication and assembly, to installation. It’s nice to work for a British manufacturer and enabled me to understand business operations while working towards my qualifications. At the end of my apprenticeship, I worked in the Contracts Drawing Office moving from Junior Draughtsman to a fully qualified Draughtsman a few months after. Matt now works as a Design Engineer for the Major Projects Division. Major Projects are our specialist department, working on construction projects over a long project period or a heritage site with technical challenges, such as our extensive work for Network Rail. Matt explains: “I am currently producing designs and liaising with our client to install 3 passenger lifts at Manor Park Station as part of the ‘Access for all’ (AFA) initiative set out by the government to provide step free access. There are ongoing meetings with various construction disciplines such as architects and M&E designers to finalise the designs and ensure all of the various elements marry up when it comes to installation. It’s really interesting work, as this team gets involved in building a lift at component level, liaising with our equipment suppliers to produce a complete package that meets with the client’s specification and EN81 lift standards.” So what advice would Matt give to someone starting out at Stannah? “Get involved and ask lots of questions, Stannah look for enthusiasm and people that share their engineering passion – that and take up a sporting activity; you will need it with all the cake on offer!” Stannah is celebrating 150 years since Joseph Stannah established the company in London in 1867. Now the UK’s largest independent lift manufacturer, the British lift company employs over 1800 people locally. Find out more about the company and our current job vacancies.

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