Applications Engineer James Retires After 46 Years with Hy-Pro & We Welcome Peter to the Role

We are very pleased to welcome Peter to our team but this comes with a sad goodbye to our long-standing employee James – Peter is taking on his role as Applications Engineer.

James was originally steered towards this industry back at school: “As a small child with a passion for all things mechanical (preferably with wheels) some crusty teacher looked at my 11 – Plus exam paper and declared “You shall be an Engineer boy!”. And off to Homelands Technical High School For Boys Torquay I went for 6 years…which suited me just fine. Machines, metal work, technical drawing, maths, sports (including swimming and diving). Brilliant! …we even had a car to take to bits and reassemble! So ending up working for a company that design, develop and manufacture products that go into all kinds of machinery and boats all over the world has been just great.”

James started working for Hy-Pro in 1972 in the Machine Shop and Assembly areas and after a brief break away from Hy-Pro to pursue a role elsewhere in direct field sales in advertising, he came back to us in the role of Technical and Quality Manager. In 2014 James took up the position of Technical Sales Manager which has involved supporting our OEM customers, appointing and training our distributors, finding and growing the relationship with new clients.

James recalls “The real fun and privilege has been planning and showing off the Company and its products at various trade exhibitions including the METS Marine Trade Show in Amsterdam, the Fluid Power and Systems Show at the NEC and other events.”

When asked if he learnt anything in his time at Hy-Pro, James answered “Look for ways to commend people and help them grow. Listen and believe in them. When we are confronted by a seemingly unsurmountable problem, remember there is a solution, we just don’t know what it is yet.” For us and the custom solutions our team can build to suit many different applications, this is very apt advice.

Peter is now taking over James’ role and he too has experience in the Fluid Power industry as for just over 15 years he was dealing primarily with mobile applications, starting as a self-employed Agricultural service/repair engineer working on bespoke harvesting machinery and involved in the design of simple hydraulic systems.

Peter has previously collaborated with Hy-Pro when working with another company and when we asked why he wanted to work with us he commented: “HyPro have a remarkable reputation for their technical expertise and customer support which will be great to be a part of. Working with customers on their machinery, new and old.  It gives you great sense of achievement seeing it all come to life for the first time.”

Peter and James have been working closely to get up to date with everything Peter needs to know about Hy-Pro and the needs of the role, however, James did have a few things to say on the matter: “I never thought the day would come when I pass my role over to a left handed lager drinking vegetarian with slightly ginger hair and a French surname. (who incidentally got a bigger computer screen on day 2 than I’ve EVER had) Sacré bleu!”

Peter knows he has some big boots to fill, and we’re really going to miss James, but we know that with his experience he’s going to do a great job for us and our customers. Our Managing Director, Elaine, has added: “I’ll miss James’ wicked sense of humour, which has  kept me going for the last 30 plus years!”

It has been a phenomenal few years with James but it is now time for him to sail and travel his way through retirement. We really hope it treats him well! So we will leave you with one final message from James…

“Thank you for giving me meaningful, enjoyable, creative employment for all these years and I hope in return you have received the quality and quantity deserved. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you all for your understanding and support in the difficult times. To faintly echo the words of Dick Hammond, Hy-Pro’s founder ‘I hope I’ve made a difference’.”