This weekend is Armed Forces Day, and we want to recognise the many colleagues at Marston Holdings who have served in the forces or continue to serve in the reservists.
As an organisation we have signed the Armed Forces Covenant, and we continue to provide opportunities for many veterans at Marston Holdings!
We would also like to recognise and celebrate the diversity of skills and experiences that former and current military colleagues bring to our organisation.
Three colleagues have kindly shared their experiences below.
John Quigley, joined the Army at the tender age of sixteen and effectively went back to school, but as this was ‘army school’, as well as maths and English, and military training, he also picked up a motorbike and car licence and did eight parachute jumps! Not bad for a first 12 months. In fact, extensive training became a common theme across his military career and culminated in a degree in Logistics Management.
John originally joined the Royal Corps of Transport which became the Royal Logistics Corp. In all he did 24 years’ service, and it took him around the world. His first five years were spent in Germany as part of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corp, postings in other parts of Europe followed, including a hard two years in West Belfast during the troubles, as part of the driving and bodyguard team for a Brigade Commander, where you were always ‘on alert’.
John’s roles often meant ensuring 20-30 trucks were ready, maintained and fuelled. In Basra, Iraq, John had the responsibility for getting the heavy lift vehicles into the city with vital supplies. This was a challenging time, the conditions meant more mechanical failures, the rough terrain meant tyre blow outs and vehicles were regularly shot at.
As John progressed to Sergeant, he started to get more training postings and became an instructor at the School of Mechanical Transport, helping the next generation. Looking back on his army career it took him around the world and gave him unique experiences, from jungle training in Belize to Artic warfare in Norway, as well as difficult tours in Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq. All of these skills and experiences make him an expert in building up ops, getting things organised and running a well-oiled operation in business. And he applies these skills in his role as Pound Manager in Edinburgh, which also includes looking after signs and lines and the cashier team.
Neil Sexton, Area Enforcement Manager, has the military in his DNA
Neil joined the regular army as a young man and served three years with the Royal Anglian Regiment. In this short time he had many experiences including being based in Northern Ireland, and it left a stronger impression than he realised at the time!
He left the Army to start a family, and instantly regretted leaving. He missed the way of life, the structures and the friendships, ‘it felt like home to me’.
Fast forward to 2009: Neil decided it was the right time to re-join, this time as a reservist in the Territorial Army, with the Rifles based in Stratford, London, and he hasn’t looked back. In his fifteen years’ service since, he’s progressed through the ranks to Sergeant, seen action in Afghanistan and unexpectedly became a Coldstream Guardsman.
A deployment to Afghanistan was a highlight and involved 12 months in total, including readiness training, and a six-month tour, which saw action in a combat zone. This contrasts to the current focus, ceremonial duties such as Trooping the Colour which require different skills and leadership.
Neil sees the skills and experiences from the military as hugely transferable to his role at Marston and equally, skills from his role in Recovery can be used in the military, for example he was able to use his First Aid Mental Health training to support army colleagues recently. He’s a busy man, juggling high profile ceremonial duties, to running the ranges at Sandhurst, to training new starters in Enforcement. It’s all in a day’s work in the reserves.
The Royal Corp of Signals ignited a passion for helping people learn
David Taylor, Learning and Development Business Partner, can look back on a successful Army career spanning twenty-three and a half years, which took him around the world and paved the way for a second career in training. Not that he appreciated this at the time.
David joined the Army as a young soldier in the Signals Corp at the tender age of sixteen, which as he was so young, required mum and dad’s permission. His first posting was to Germany, and it was actually his hardest. From the age of 18-21 his role, as Comms Centre Operator, was to receive signals and send them to stations around the world. It was a hard, intense role, operating alone in a small unit. He remembers it as sleep, work, repeat. Although on days off fun was had. The mantra was ‘work hard, play hard.’
Numerous postings followed around the world, and some of the highlights during this time included learning to ride a motorcycle in the Oman desert during the Gulf War deployment – then becoming an avid motorcyclist for many years after. Going on Exercise Snow Queen, “this was pretty much a skiing holiday in the south of Germany, then not long after it turned into a proper military exercise. Meeting Princess Anne (our Colonel in Chief) on parade not long after the Gulf War.”
A posting to Blandford, which is the training centre for signallers, changed David’s future career path. At first being an instructor was terrifying, but he soon fell in love with teaching, in particular sharing his expertise and passing on these skills to the next generation of signallers. His last three years were solely focused on instructing. After leaving the army David didn’t initially consider training in civvy street and instead became an alarm fitter – and hated it.
His way back into training came from an advert he saw for ex-Sergeants to train people in the rail industry; the organisation was looking for a particular ‘breed’ for the contract it was delivering on critical safety training. He got the job, and the rest is history. Further roles followed in leadership and management training before David arrived at Marston in April 2014 where he’s been ever since.
