Irish engineers are incredibly creative thinkers and innovators, but it's a big leap going from innovator to entrepreneur, and taking an idea you might have to market.

Today we hear from a prominent engineer with a fascinating career history, which took her from aeronautical engineering into the biomedical space. We'll be finding out how she looks at problems, overcomes obstacles, where she sees innovation and opportunity, and getting some great advice for any engineers who are thinking of launching their own business.

Our guest is CEO of Altratech and the Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute at University of Limerick, Dr. Tara Dalton.

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT

• Transitioning through different disciplines of engineering
• The benefits of working within interdisciplinary teams
• Learning to ‘skate where the puck is’
• Being aware of trends and spotting gaps in the market
• Striving for progress over perfection and asking for help

 

GUEST DETAILS
Dr Tara Dalton, CEO of Altratech and Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Limerick.

Dr Dalton is a fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineers. She is one of the founders of Stokes Bio – a spin-out company that was sold to Life Technologies that developed high throughput microfluidic instruments for PCR. Her research interest is in the development of microfluidic devices for biological assays. She has graduated 20 PhD Students, published over 100 refereed papers and has over 50 granted patent and patent applications.

https://altratech.com/

https://ul.ie/research/dr-tara-dalton

 

MORE INFORMATION

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/  

 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

 

QUOTES

In my mind, in engineering, you don't want to be at the cutting edge of absolute new science. You want to be just behind it, so you can help people with that science. - Tara Dalton

 

When you work with interdisciplinary team, and I work with medics, physicists, chemists or even with other entrepreneurs, it's just amazing, because I find that everybody wants to help you be better. Nobody, at least in my experience, gatekeeps their knowledge. - Tara Dalton

 

Skate where the puck is, right. It didn't matter that I had this great product, but to get venture capital funding, that was never going to happen, because it wasn't in that ecosystem at the time. So that was one really big learning lesson. - Tara Dalton

 

Ask for help. Everybody, ask for help. Go talk to people, go talk to Enterprise Ireland, go talk to lawyers, go talk to VCs. Don't go saying I want, want, want, just say, What should I do? How could you help me? You'd be surprised how many people will give you their time. - Tara Dalton

 

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes  00:00

Right now on AMPLIFIED, we're about to find out how seemingly impossible things are eminently possible.

 

Tara Dalton  00:07

He never let perfection hinder progress. And so I just say, Okay, let's just make progress. I have to be consciously aware of thinking, Oh, God, we signed a contract to do something like what have we done? Knowing full well, that's going to be a really a hard ask.

 

Dusty Rhodes  00:26

Hello, my name is Dusty Rhodes and you're welcome to AMPLIFIED, the Engineers Journal podcast. I think we can agree that Irish engineers are incredibly creative thinkers and innovators. But it's a big leap going from innovator to entrepreneur, and taking an idea you might have to market. In this episode, we'll be hearing from a prominent engineer with a fascinating career history, which took her from aeronautical engineering into the biomedical space, we'll be finding out how she looks at problems, overcomes obstacles, where she sees innovation and opportunity, and getting some great advice for any engineers who are thinking of launching their own business. It's a pleasure to welcome the CEO of Altratech and the Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute at UL. Dr. Tara Dalton. Tara, how are you?

 

Tara Dalton  01:14

Hi, how are you? Hi, I'm good. Thank you so much.

 

Dusty Rhodes  01:18

Listen, welcome onto the podcast. I always start off by asking people what what made you want to be an engineer? How did you get into this game at all?

 

Tara Dalton  01:28

Um, actually, I think to be to be quite truthful, I think it was, it was my father. I had all sorts of different plans. And I, you know, I, I remember not really wanting to do honors maths at school. And my father sort of saying, you know, it opens up such a lot for you. So, you know, he like he worked at the University of Limerick. And he felt that that engineering was a really good combination of creativity and of maths, you know, because I always did like the sciences. I was interested in physics and chemistry, and biology. So I think, in some senses, there was serendipitous things, I suppose it was my dad really kind of pushed me to taking that on.

 

Dusty Rhodes  02:05

So when you went through school and university, you got into engineering then proper, and you started with aeronautical engineering. Tell me a bit more about that. So actually,

 

Tara Dalton  02:13

actually, I started with mechanical and then they launched aeronautical engineering when I was in third year. So at that time, it wasn't a discipline in itself, it was something you could specialize in, in third year, I think I was just so completely fascinated, because I think it goes against every instinct in our body that we can put that thing up in the sky. Every instinct and every single time I think about something that can't be done, I look at and say they they have an engine there that is going at, you know, 15,000 RPM, that's that's huge, up at 36,000 feet. Come on, like, Of course we can do it. So I think it for me, it's just, I think it's just fascinating and in almost a romantic way. And I still love it, you know, I changed because in some senses, there's a lot more I think innovation in biomedical engineering. You know, the aeronautical engineering is quite a regulated piece. So, you know, for me, it didn't allow that creativity and that innovation, so I changed biomedical engineering, but aeronautical engineering still has a huge, you know, soft spot, I said, I didn't know they're applying them, I'm gonna watch

 

Dusty Rhodes  03:23

this, there's a real passion there for you for aeronautical and flying, but you went from that then into biomedical why, why did you make the switch? Well,

 

Tara Dalton  03:33

he so I did, I did a postdoc in the University of Limerick. And at the time, again, you know, the government had this really amazing program, it was called the programs and advanced technology programs. And basically, what they encouraged you to do was as a postdoc, they encouraged you to work hugely with industry. And then they they supported that intervention. So they wanted to link university researchers with industry and we were fortunate, we had a great kind of Pac group. And we worked with Intel, we worked with you to Packard, we worked with, you know, Nokia at the time. And I just got this feed, I just, I loved it, you know, I love that idea that what you did had an impact, you know, even if it is in a in a large multinational or a small company, commensurate with that around the same time, the size foundation Arlindo setup, and at that time, they remit to fund two big things. So ICT at the time and bio, the and, you know, that was their decision. So I thought, okay, let's be real here. You know, if you want to go research, you want to, you know, you've you've to, you have to be like, you know, like Wayne Gretzky, you know, the great ice skater, he said, skate where the puck is going to be, you know, where the puck has been. He knows I mean, so, you know, you've got to look at the landscape and say, well, that's where the research money is going to be. If you think about at the time bio, the genome had just been sequenced. This was the biggest thing ever. There was a breakthrough for peace. See our reactions and everything. So when you looked at these like, okay, there's going to be so much scope for an engineer following breaking science, in my mind and engineering, you don't want to be at the cutting edge of absolute new science. But essentially, you just want to be just behind it. So you can help to, you know, help people with that science. So for me a deal, as I said, the genome has just been sequenced, I can see for the next 15 years, you know, there's going to be massive innovation in this space, which there was. So that's why I changed from Rob arrow mechanical to much more bio COVID. But it is really applying the same principles of any engineer just to a different class of problems. If you're

 

Dusty Rhodes  05:42

listening to you're talking about kind of biomedical, I mean, you're very passionate about it, but I kind of get the impression that you're more are you more passionate about the fact that you're doing something challenging, and something new, and something that's gonna help people rather than it being actually to do with aeronautical or biomedical?

 

Tara Dalton  06:00

Yeah, I think so as I said, the same principles are applied, you know, they think engineering principles are applied to everything. But I think in Biomedical Engineering, well, first of all, it's very interdisciplinary. So you get to learn from, you know, loads of people, and it's full of problems to be solved, which is great, you know, there's loads of things that we don't know, that we want to sell. And so for me, it's like, you know, it's like, it's like, a child in a sweet shop. It Oh, there's just so many interesting things to learn. And I love learning it, there's just so much. And the other thing is, when you work with interdisciplinary team, and I work with, you know, worked with medics, with physicists, or chemists with, you know, with entrepreneurs, with with finance people, it's just, it's just amazing, because I find that everybody wants to help you be better. Nobody, I, at least in my experience, kind of gatekeepers their knowledge. And I think in in, you know, when you're in that race, where you really want to try and solve a problem, I find that people don't take the knowledge because they want to find solutions. And so it's an extraordinary place to be. And also, I think, I'm not a person that some people I think, are really good. And you see people who kind of take a problem, and they dive into it. And deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, I'm not that kind of person, I like to kind of spread out, you know what I mean? So look at, you know, applying this skill over here, over here from here, rather than doing kind of this classical, deep dive and understanding upon more. Absolutely, that's important as well, if that's just not me. So I think I think this type of problem solving, engineering suits me more than we'll say, a classic scientist, you know, where you're, you're really building on knowledge, and really getting a deep, deep understanding about that uncut of more. Okay, how do we solve a problem? So I think that's the difference between engineering Well, in my opinion, is difference between engineering and sort of deep science, if you like? Well,

 

Dusty Rhodes  08:00

I think that's what we do is, uh, you know, we look at problems and we go, Well, how can we fix this? Or how can we make it better? Now, a lot of people who will be working as engineers are within a company, and then they have all these thoughts and ideas. But sometimes, you know, things don't happen, because there's a boss upstairs, or the company doesn't want to go that way. You're different in that you kind of went, Well, I really want to do this. So I'm going to be an entrepreneur, and I'm going to start my own business, do you think that your engineering brain and the way that it works kind of helped you to stand on your own two feet and run your own business,

 

Tara Dalton  08:32

I think, on my experience, when I did the programs apart, so we ended up interacting with companies an awful lot. And I think that stood out to me. And also I just the idea that something that you created that somebody actually bought me, they paid money, I remember my my father in law saying to me that that money is a stored work, you know what I mean? And so, you know, this idea that somebody is going to pay for that. I thought, That's a brilliant idea. And I always wanted to do it, I always wanted to do it since I was like, since I was sort of 2627. And in a year, you know, whatever about a company in a university environment, you know, there's things are changing and have changed, but at that time, there is a lot of pressure put on publications, and this is what we do and the you know, it's to go and, and say, Okay, I'm going to I'm going to create a company. It's not necessary. Now, University of Limerick, I have to say we're brilliant. But you know, there are people who say, Okay, look at me, that isn't the job of an academic. But I think as an as an academic engineer, it is exactly my job, even if it's not to create enterprise to help enterprise and to work on on sort of, you know, engineering problems. So I always wanted to do that. And I think, you know, naivety is your friend in doing this, it really is because, you know, in some senses Ultratech is my second or was actually was actually technically it's my fourth company. You don't need one but That duck failed for very funny reasons. Oh, yeah, this is hilarious or silly like the first the first week, we had this amazing product, what went? Well, in my view, it was right, it was a fiber optic based system that actually was used to to turn on heaters to take ice off helicopter blades, you need to a wouldn't win helicopters and you know, obviously do ice forming on helicopter blades is really, really bad, depending on the type of ice anyway, it was a it was a piece of hardware. And for some reason I got picked to go to Boston. This is a this like 28 or something to pitch my idea in front of 100 requests, which would there would have been a lawyer firm, but with a lot of VC backing a lot of companies, there was a there was a lot of potential companies going to do that. So I remember sitting there and I had my little piece of hardware, it had my sheet with all this details on it. And I was listening to everybody present. And every single one of them was software companies, this was the.com thing. And they were to some of them were the most stupidest ideas you could ever imagine that but that wasn't the point. The point was, is they weren't getting funding these people were looking for 1.5 million 20. I learned straightaway, okay. Again, that was skate where the puck is, right. So it didn't matter, I had this great product, but to get venture capital funding, that was never going to happen, because it wasn't in that ecosystem at the time. So that was one really big learning lesson. And again, similarly, in the the second company that we did, you know, actually did work, but it wasn't again, it wasn't a high potential startup. So that was one of the reasons I changed to bio because you are basically in VCs, you know, they like to fund we're looking to fund you know, so you're thinking, Okay, I need to be in that in that area. Stokes bio was then the third company. And until we learn, okay, say okay, look, you know, this is what we're going to do, we're going to follow breaking science, we're going to use our own skills, I'm really careful about how we kind of positioned what what we did. And of course, you know, a lot of people said, we're engineers in, in in the biosciences, you haven't opened hell. And again, you just just ignore it, you know what I mean? And I think you ignore it, because you have so much fun doing it, it doesn't really matter. You know, what I mean, you're just really enjoying learning, and we'd love to PhD students, and, you know, we bring in collaborators, and, you know, to use that horrible word, but the journey, like was the you know, was, you know, that was as important as the exit and the final part of

 

Dusty Rhodes  12:33

it, but it is the journey, as you say, and what I love about what you're talking about, it's kind of like, you've given us two examples where you fell down, this isn't wrong with falling down, it's how you pick yourself up afterwards. Okay, so you fell down, once you fell down twice, you picked yourself up, once you picked yourself up twice, you went into the third one. Now, the third one was quite successful. And this is kind of you're very well known for Stokes was, you mentioned it, it's been a big part of your life, because they've kind of struggles commercial company and a university. And I don't understand how that works. So tell me about it.

 

Tara Dalton  13:06

Okay. So that, you know, yeah, so So, so myself and my co founder, Professor Mark Davies, so he was actually my PhD supervisor, and then, you know, we we kind of drifted apart, and then we came back together to, to do this. And again, the genome has been sequenced. And we're really fascinated with that. So we started a research group in the university. And you the advantage of starting your research in the university is, it's a very, it's a very gentle place to explore ideas, so that you're not giving away equity, if you make mistakes are, it's taking time that you know, for a long time, it wasn't, you know, the stuff we were doing wasn't working. And in an in a university environment, that's that can be tolerated a lot easier. And we had we had a number of PhD students, and interestingly, so actually, so we went to the SFI, even five times five times for funding and FBI wouldn't fund what we were doing, and that's okay, I get it, you know, we didn't have a history and what we were doing, and at the time, you know, reviewers would say, Look, you know, this isn't really that novel, etc. But engineering isn't supposed to be a hugely novel, it's supposed to take science and, and if you take, yeah, if you take a hero experiment that's done once you want to engineer it, so it's, you could do it 100 million times, you know, so that's kind of where we were coming at, and, and I can I get away as if i But anyway, I at that time, when I was like, Oh my God, you know, how are we going to get funding? What are we going to do now? Enterprise Ireland was, were really supportive of what we were doing, and they funded us. And I thought, okay, you know, what we'll do, we'll, we'll um, Bucha some publicity. So we did some publicity and and I contacted a publicist. And I said, Listen, you know, I think what we're doing is really kind of clever and interesting. Could you know, could we get some traction, just even on the Irish stage, not necessarily European or American. So It was caused and caught by the Irish Times, actually. And a VC saw it. And he approached us. And he said, When you spin this company out, can we be at the table, we'll give you 100,000 euros if we're at the table. And I said, look, let's forget that, let's just do it now. You know, I was so anxious. And you know, in some senses what I said we were a bit early. Probably. That's true. So the University of Limerick, and also, under the sea did a deal for our intellectual property, we did a deal for way to whole bunch of students. And we moved the company out of the university, I wanted it out to the university. So I wanted a real separation between what we did and do well, and what appealed to commercial aspect of what we were doing. And like the university, as I said, they were, they were amazing, they allowed me, myself and mark to remain as academics, okay, full time academics and to do the company. And that took a lot of creative thinking. And what we did is, they also, they assigned us our intellectual property, which means our intellectual property was owned by the company not licensed. And I know that that isn't done now. But it was such a really good thing for the company. It gave us huge freedoms later on and raising money and enjoying strategic relationships. So you know, I know that's not done nowadays. But it was it was great. So, so we ended up taking our PhD students into the company, thankfully, as they started to graduate. So we had this well, what's the word? I'm looking for conveyor belt of amazing, amazing people that we took into the company. And yeah, but you know, don't get me wrong. It was it was hard, because you know, we were new with this new what managing VCs knew what that relationships, they were raising money. And then finally, we got to strategic you know, for the the deal, the exit happened, and that was great. But it was it was tough, but fun. You know,

 

Dusty Rhodes  16:52

it's fascinating listening to you taking on this problem of having an idea and wanting to run a company to implement that idea, and the reasons why you did it. And it didn't work. The first time didn't work the second time, the third time it did work and to you, you had good partners and stuff like that. Eventually, you have to sell it, which is always you know, kind of heartbreaking. Did you make much?

 

Tara Dalton  17:11

Yeah, we did

 

17:14

it. Okay. So yeah, so we put a number on a Tyra Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.

 

Tara Dalton  17:19

So, so we ended up selling, so we raised about sort of maybe six, 7 million, and that we sold it for almost $50 million, which, which is a really nice return for everybody. Because if the company hadn't got had a really nice, simple cap table, it wasn't hugely diluted. So you know, it was good. It was good in that regard. So I think everybody did, did well.

 

Dusty Rhodes  17:40

Well, all I could do, I'm literally standing up and applauding. Good on you fair play, okay. Because it's brilliant. Because you follow that through and you worked on all of the problems and you had some success. Okay, as somebody that was great. And it was 2010, he sold us somewhere around Yeah,

 

Tara Dalton  17:55

then myself and Mark White to work for the company. The acquirers were like technologies that term proficient out. So we went, we took then a two year leave of absence to work with the integration of the technology into into which was, again, I got to work with a multinational for two years, which was really exciting. And that was still that was really different. And, you know, I teach my students, we do live, we do med devices, and we do like a Dragon's Den. So I teach them, you know, and one of the things this exact same thing you do with selling an idea to a VC, you'd sell an idea to your bosses in a multinational this is same thing, it's the same ideas. And so we, you know, we had that experience as well of kind of integrating the, what we were doing into, into a US multinational, which was, you know, which was, which was different, that's for certain.

 

Dusty Rhodes  18:46

So, as well as teaching and inspiring people in University of Limerick, still, you're also the CEO of ultra tech, as I mentioned in the intro, now, you're leading a team of over 20 engineers and scientists there to a layman like myself, can you describe what it is that you're working on?

 

Tara Dalton  19:01

Okay, so so I'll check it. I'm not a founder Valtryek there are two founders, one of the founders, I knew because he was founded, he founded his previous company, the same time we, I found his Stokes bio, and he was in the university as well. So and we were funded by the same venture capitalist, so we kind of knew each other. And then, you know, we kind of both he sold his company successfully, I thought line that we kind of got together. And he said he had this idea of, he's a silicon designers, electronics engineer. And he said, Oh, you know, could I do something with silicone in the bio space? And I was like, you know, it's really interesting. You say that, because there's been this huge explosion. So I know that that live technologies brought a secrecy company for silicone. I think they bought it for north of 600 million. Okay, so it was a huge acquisition. And there were some other companies that was nanopore, there was a few and I said, Juno's on the champ. I said, Yeah, you know, there's, there's an idea there. So he went away, and he kind of thought about it. And then no other venture capitalist said, you know, Tara, you know, you know Hold this space because, you know, I'd been in that kind of bio space, etc. And he said, You know what, you'll be on the board. And I was like, hey, yeah, absolutely. Because I'd been back in the university for a while I was doing some work on cancer stuff on stuff on heterogeneity of tumors. And I was like, Oh, I'm kind of feeling the itch again, now to do something outside of that. And so I said, Yeah, I'll be on the board. And then a week later, he goes, target you CEO. And I was like, Are you kidding me? I was like, oh, gosh, no, you know, and I said to my husband, I was like, Jeff, I said, Oh, God, this is Tony, you have to, you know, you have to like, so I was like, okay, okay. Okay, I'll do it. And so basically, what what it is that it's really compelling science. And it's so interdisciplinary, it's basically it's a methodology, or a product that can take that can detect any virus in a non clinical setting. Very importantly, it doesn't use an enzymatic step. So you would be aware, Okay, everybody, listen, he says, Beware of PCR, every, you know, if I was to tell everybody, there's like, three, four years ago, pre COVID, they look at me blankly, but now kind of people get it, right. So you know, what PCR is, you know, how the importance of it, and how, cuz it's such an accurate technique for detecting any virus from COVID, to flu to, you know, to HIV doesn't matter. But the trouble with PCR is, it's a technique that you can't really take outside the laboratory or the clinical setting. And so we've invented a way that can do that. And it uses a combination of, you know, really novel chemistry, biology, and micro fluidics, which is kind of white area, and silicon chip design. So it's really difficult. And it you know, it's been tough, you know, the technological development will just help. But if it wasn't taught me, it's not going to be worth it, right? Because you will say, well, then it is tough because it is so groundbreaking. And so it's going to change the world, in my view for for viral detection, in my view, but but it is, it is technically challenging.

 

Dusty Rhodes  22:06

You've mentioned several times, as you're always thinking about where the puck is going to be rather than where it is now. And when you talk about Ultra Tech, I mean, that was 20s, mid, mid 20, teens, whatever you were involved in that was it.

 

Tara Dalton  22:18

Yeah. Just prior to COVID. Exactly.

 

Dusty Rhodes  22:22

My point, right is because you got involved in this, and then COVID came along, and boom, your company is perfectly. Yeah,

 

Tara Dalton  22:28

it's so funny, because we wait a video we to do in 2000 2019, or just before COVID In November, we to do a presentation in Boston, and party me to make a video of what your technology does. And initially, we had on the video, this will this would be you know, suitable for pandemic management and etc. At that and Marty came up. The difficulty was we were our technology was too early for it. You know what I mean? Like, and when you get a crisis situation like that, what happens is, is you reposition old technology, because that's what you have to do, you don't really have the time to to invent something new. But what a crisis does is you reposition old technology. But then what it does is it makes people aware that oh my gosh, there's there's a need there, you know, there is a need for us to be able to, to manage pandemics in a much better way than obviously what we then what's happened. And there's going to be technologies that are going to enable that whether we get there whether we were in the race, I don't know. But we're definitely in with a chance.

 

Dusty Rhodes  23:33

I absolutely love how your brain works. Because seriously, because you think research development, innovation is very much key to you. You're kind of always thinking about the future. But you always seem to spot a gap in the market. And what I wanted to ask you is Do you even know in your own brain, how you are able to spot a gap in the market? What how do you weigh things up when you when you're looking at?

 

Tara Dalton  23:57

I think I think, first of all, I don't know whether I am or not, you know what I mean? I think that that remains to be seen. But anyway, I think it's because I generally, that's the broadness, this was not the deep dive person, like, you know, it's looking around you. So I've just gotten funding now for our next company, which after Ultratech and you know, and we were just doing the the early research now in the university, and it's on, it's on the immune system. It's on immunotherapies. And, you know, if I'm just asking you say, oh, yeah, okay, you get that because, you know, if you were to pick up the newspaper 10 years ago, you wouldn't read about immunotherapies you wouldn't think about it. Now we know we think about like the immune system, autoimmune diseases, allergies are our understanding about how we react to vaccines. immunotherapies for cancer, you know, that's exploded in the last 10 years. So again, we're going to need engineering behind that technology, you know, behind that science to support the growth in that area. So that's, you know, it's just it's just kind of watching and thinking that's new. Debrett's breaking signs really is where she wants to keep an eye on for me, that's what I keep an eye on. And then

 

Dusty Rhodes  25:04

when you see something that you think has potential, you look into it a little bit further. And then

 

Tara Dalton  25:10

you know, the the virus say, I mean, that's, that's kind of obvious if you though I mean, if you think about it, all the outbreaks that we've had no stars, you know, that you just know, and you know, it was going to happen. We knew it was going to happen. It was not a question of, of if it was, it was a question of weighty. Okay. I mean, you know, that's, that's 100% I mean, everything from the Spanish Flu guys, you know, it's just, it's just a matter of when, and we were lucky this time,

 

Dusty Rhodes  25:38

why are you so confident when you say that COVID Was it was a matter of when not if

 

Tara Dalton  25:43

it because there's been because others always outbreaks, there's always outbreaks, and all you need is the right conditions. So if you take something like, if you take a virus that is that, like kills people quickly, that is probably not going to spread much. It is something that spreads a lot, it's probably not going to. So all you need to do is just get that balance, right? Where a you know, spreads quickly, and it has a potentially devastating effect, that's going to happen again, of course it is, you know, and if you think about it, you know, how the world has changed global travel or interaction where something may have been contained. You know, I remember saying to somebody, you know, five years ago, I said, we will listen, somebody would use the word quarantine and in our lifetimes, and would hear the word quarantine again, you know, we were probably going up, did you ever hear the word quarantine in the 50s? You would have heard it hear when people had scarlet fever when people had people quarantined? Now, it's, it's, you know, obviously, we tried it, it's, you know, it's not really feasible. It's you know, so we need other ways of managing when these when these things happen. And it's got to be a combination of understanding and technology in my view. So

 

Dusty Rhodes  26:50

I think anybody in listening, I mean, I've my own ideas, my own radio broadcasting podcasting business about where it's going to be in 10 years time, there's engineers listening to it, and the guy, oh, my God, and she's right, because I know that in 10 years, time bump is going to be a problem, or this is going to happen again, or whatever it happens to be. If somebody is listening to you, they have a big, innovative idea in their head, but they just don't know how to move forward. What What would your advice to them be?

 

Tara Dalton  27:17

I think I think it depends where they are, you know, where they are in their we're in a physically working as well. And well, opportunities they have, you know, obviously, it's somebody's in a university there, you know, that's the that's the ecosystem, I understand. So I can, you know, very easily direct them. If somebody is in a multinational company, or somebody is not, I would have less understanding about how they would go about you know, about doing that. I think, regardless, ask for help. Everybody asked for help, go talk to people go talk to enterprise Ireland, go talk to lawyers, go talk to VCs, ask, and don't go say, I want one just say, What should I do? How could you help me? What can I do? And you'd be surprised? How many people will give you their time. And you'll be surprised at it? In my view? You know, we had we have top lawyers in Boston who did stuff for us pro bono, because they just think oh, yeah, this is really cool. We'll do that. And we'll be we'll make our money later on when they're successful. You know, there's a lot of people who will do that for you. So talk, go out there and share your idea.

 

Dusty Rhodes  28:31

I love the fact that I'm speaking to a lady who has sold a company for $50 million, and says that ask for help because it's what you did. And people were willing to step up. Isn't it amazing how Yeah, humankind

 

Tara Dalton  28:43

can even now no matter what you do, people come to me or I still go to meet with it. Okay, you know, I need help here are, I'm not sure. People who worked for me before and still do not work for me and outreach. I could work with me and Outotec and anybody, you start to build that community, and it's true, I will, I will call like, next PhD student or somebody I knows, crikey, I need help on that. Or they can call me and say, Tara, you know, to remember that you wouldn't give me an hour of your time. As like, yeah, of course you don't I mean, and I you know, I love it. So and people do love being asked for help.

 

Dusty Rhodes  29:16

That's brilliant advice, and I can't be overstated so much, how good that advice is and my own experience, I know that to be true. The other thing that I want to ask you about Tara is your approach to problem solving and again, thinking of an NGO saying I've got a brilliant idea and I want to go but it's too much oh my god, how do you know I have to get over this humongously big wall which I don't know how to get over how am I going to do it you're good problem solver what way do you break down that problem?

 

Tara Dalton  29:45

Well actually interesting. So I'm actually I'm a bit more the way you just like oh my god. Oh my god. Like John like that isn't They do jam via the site like dig, watch, scrape. Have you gotten into today? I was like, Yeah, I know. I know. I know. And it's like, and he would say, okay, you know, what can you do tomorrow? You know, stop borrowing Tobel it's got too much interest, you know what I mean? Just what can you do? And the person I worked Davies, who I worked with as well, he was really good. He never flapped he never let perfection get in hinder progress. And so I just say, Okay, let's just make progress. And and really, I had, but I, I have to be consciously aware of thinking, Oh, God, you know what I mean? What have we committed to? We signed the contract to do something like what have we done? Knowing full? Well, it that's going to be a really a hard ask, and then you think, Okay, nope, let's just, let's just put the head down. And don't think about it. You know what I mean? Literally just say, Okay, let's not have that hinder the small progresses, you don't have any so so yeah, but I would be more the way you described it, then I would be, you know, like auction, this is fine.

 

Dusty Rhodes  31:05

I've written down a sheet of paper here, never let perfection hinder progress. I'm gonna type that up. I'm gonna stick it on the wall. It's gonna stay there for six months.

 

Tara Dalton  31:13

Yeah, don't I mean, you know, to meet our, to our children, you know, children get on with it, you know what I mean? Rather than it will, because you can get this, if you see this huge problem, it's like, you just wrap it in the headlights, you just look at it and go and feel paralyzed. And then you just gotta go. Okay? No. And also, I think having people around you that you can see that too. There's a there's a guy I love listen to this. It's Simon Sinek. But he has his eight minute rule. And he says, like, you should have a team around you that, you know, for eight minutes, you could rant and that they're not instantly you know, sometimes you don't want somebody in solution space. You just want somebody to listen to you go like, Oh my god, oh my god, this is terrible. This is not going to work. What's going to happen that anatra and you give yourself eight minutes. That's it? And then it's over and over again. So So you know, I think I think you have to allow yourself that feeling and then say, Okay, push it away. Now, let's get let's let's get let's get on with it. You know, so, Tara,

 

Dusty Rhodes  32:13

I have to say like listening to you, and just chatting because I have a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit in me. And I have, I like to call myself a sound engineer. That's, that's that's how I get away with just presenting this particular thing. But like many engineers, I see problems and I want to fix them. And I want to make the world better. And I think you know, your success is amazing. And after listening to you for the last little while, you're now guarding my world. Okay? Well, this is it. Okay. That's what I wanted to ask you was, you know who people who are listening now who are inspired by you? What would you say to someone who's listening to us right now? Who does think you're an inspiration? Are you God? Are you a normal person?

 

Tara Dalton  32:56

I'm an engineer. I'm an engineer. Engineer. Those of us out there who do you know, who to all day see solve all these problems all the time? You know, and, and there's ones that artists zillion many, and I like, like Chad, when he was with this much better engineer than me, like, I'm always going to him with solving problems, you know, you know, Mark is much better. So yeah, you know, there's, I think I would say cheese your problem wisely. Often, in my mind of, for an engineer, they're often too focused on solutions, right, you solving problems. But if you want to, if you want to sort of have a impact, do that, choose your spend time choosing your problem, like, like when we were doing Stokes whale, like Mark and I spent two years in America watching what people were doing, and seeking out that landscape. So don't be afraid of taking time to figure that problem out. It'll be the solution. Anybody can do that, to be honest with you, like a lot of people if you give them a good problem, and you set the boundary conditions on that problem. And you say, okay, look, this is the kind of area that most most people weren't there salt can do that. I think that cleverness in my view, and is choosing the correct problem at the right time. That so that's what I would say, spend time doing that. And talking and socializing it and thinking of it and testing it, and arguing it. And that's why it's great to work with people because you get all that feedback. You know, it's like, if I say to you, look, I'm thinking of doing something there and you're like, why are silicones doing that? What's your angle are you know, I mean, don't be afraid to just let that argument be battered around a bit. And and it'll form much better outfits are sorry, I talk way too much apologies. Listen,

 

Dusty Rhodes  34:48

I can listen to you all day. Tara, I think what I was trying to get across was that what's inside of you and what's driven your success is inside all of us. It's an engineering in trait, and I just think listening to you and as I say, being inspired by what you're saying we can go off and we can just make our own lives a little bit better. So I just wanted to thank you very much for sharing with us today Dr. Tara Dalton, CEO of Altratech and Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute at UL Thank you.

 

Tara Dalton  35:17

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

 

Dusty Rhodes  35:19

If you would like to find out more about Tara and some of the topics which we spoke about today you'll find notes and link details in the description area of this podcast right now. Also, if you enjoyed our podcast today do share with a friend in the business just tell them to search for engineers Ireland in their podcast player. Our podcast is produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. For advanced episodes, more information on engineering across Ireland or career development opportunities, there are libraries of information on our website at engineersireland.ie, until next time from myself Dusty Rhodes, as always, thank you for listening

Today we find out how Irish engineers are attracting big foreign business, and how investing in personal development is just as beneficial for your own growth as it is for the sector.

Global investment is crucial to the economic wellbeing of Ireland, and there are still challenges the country needs to overcome to ensure continued success.

Our expert today is at the forefront of Ireland’s international business investments and believes our engineering sector has a lot of talent to offer. He is an engineer and CEO of IDA Ireland, Michael Lohan.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT

01:09 Michael’s Career

06:36 Working with tech, people and global supply chains

08:13 What the IDA does

10:03 The main investment sectors in Ireland

12:58 Challenges impacting foreign investment

16:28 The availability of STEM talent in Ireland

18:06 How Irish engineers stand out

23:13 Encouraging upskilling and continuous learning

26:19 Getting young people involved in STEM subjects

34:00 Expanding opportunities outside of Dublin

37:35 Advice Michael would give to a young engineer

GUEST DETAILS

Michael Lohan is the Chief Executive Officer of IDA Ireland as of April 2023. A key priority for Michael in his role as Chief Executive Officer is leading on the execution and delivery of IDA Ireland’s organisational strategy: Driving Recovery and Sustainable Growth 2021- 2024, which will be delivered through a focus on five pillars: Growth, Transformation, Regions, Sustainability, and Impact.

Michael joined IDA Ireland in 2003 and has held various management positions across multiple functions and has represented IDA in several fora including as a Board member on Digital Manufacturing Ireland, a governance member on the SSPC research centre for pharmaceuticals and also The Irish Medical Association (which is the business association within IBEC representing the medical devices and diagnostics sector).

Prior to joining IDA Ireland, Michael held several different positions including Manager for New Business Solutions with Nortel’s European Operations in Galway and a management role with IEC Electronics European Operations. Michael is an Engineering graduate with an MSc in Technology Management from the National University of Ireland, Galway and additionally is a graduate of the Berkley Executive Programme.

MORE INFORMATION

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/ 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

To learn more about iWish https://www.iwish.ie/

QUOTES

I can speak for myself, as an engineer, you're very much technically driven, but those softer skills, that acumen from a business perspective, are so so important. The more you can hone that, coupled that with your technical expertise, that's a formula for real success, for real growth and progression. - Michael Lohan

We have been very successful for the last decade plus in terms of FDI. In terms of economic prosperity in Ireland, our population is growing, our enterprise base, both foreign and indigenous have grown. That leads us to the challenges of success, our housing capacity, our infrastructure capacity. There are key elements that we have to continue to address and make sure that we have adequate plans in place for the next generation of investment. - Michael Lohan

We in Ireland seem to be leading at the front edge of that technology, of that innovation, of that deployment, and I think that comes down to the skill base that we have, and within that is the engineering resources that's available to us. - Michael Lohan

I would encourage anyone, no matter where you are in your career, to continue to learn. In fact, I am no different, I have to continue to be curious, I have to continue to look to where I can add additional strengths to my offering. - Michael Lohan

I think industry needs to help encourage young people into STEM, because the more we can show that there's a path here in terms of career, that there's a rewarding, fulfilling and diverse career that you can get  through STEM subjects.  - Michael Lohan

Learn as quickly as you can how to interact and engage with others because the your success is going to be based on how you engage with your peers, how you can influence and negotiate. The more you can hone that earlier in your career, the more you can benefit from it later on. - Michael Lohan

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Michael Lohan  00:00

I think there's a few things that actually make Irish engineers and Irish talent stand out. You know, I hear this directly from law, the CEOs and CTOs applying companies. And that's what we have in Ireland, we have that uniqueness in us that we actually see problems as a real opportunity. And we don't take the status quo is the way things should be always done, we actually can see different means of delivery. And more importantly, we actually can bring goals to fruition and implement them.

Dusty Rhodes  00:27

Hello there. My name is Dusty Rhodes, you're welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal podcast. In this episode, we're about to dive into engineering and business development and see how both are shaping the economic landscape of the country. We'll be looking at the challenges and opportunities facing the engineering sector in Ireland, the importance of regional growth and how to future proof your own career. Our guest is a seasoned engineer, he has 30, hugely successful years under his belt, working with some leading companies and now finds himself as the CEO of the IDA. It's a delight to welcome Michael Lohan and Michael, how are you?

Michael Lohan  01:04

I'm good dusty, Thank you very much.

Dusty Rhodes  01:09

Michael, you're a qualified engineer just kind of set the scene for us. What strand of engineering Did you qualify?

Michael Lohan  01:16

I am indeed Yeah, so my primary degree is in electronic engineering and so straight electronics. And it's funny to the just last week, actually, I was part of the A to you launch of the Illumina network where I actually studied in cycle RTC as it was in the day and then transferred to finish my degree actually in Galway again RTC so given away some part of my of my age and in that element. But I think what's important is part of that is as I was fortunate that I was part of a group where a group of friends, but in the College Network, we're actually at this move transition from Galway, or sorry, from Slager to Galway. So we actually saw that progression through our education system, which I'm probably you're very tight third for that, you know, we saw it as a means of movement. Yes, we also saw as a means of a new scenery from a social perspective. But more importantly, we were able to advance our careers and, and so that's my background. And, and I continue to suppose along those technical areas, as I looked across different aspects of, of my career and my educational because as I've gone through, I suppose my career, I've added other areas, for example, I was one of the first cohort that went through the certification at the time for health and safety at work, actually true UCD, which was delivered remotely, if one would think what that what that was 20 years ago, which so as as challenges come forward in my career, I always, always talked about, okay, is there an area where I need to maybe upscale or rescale, or reposition myself, and that was one such add on the same project management. And then I went back to do a master's in technology management as well. And then you I call myself a continuous journey. I think around along that route.

Dusty Rhodes  02:54

You mentioned that you did it remotely. And it was 20 years ago, you know, this day and age when we're all just so used to video calls and accessing things. And and I'm not going to electronic get the recording and kind of all this the know, how was it done remotely. 20 years ago,

Michael Lohan  03:10

when I was actually doing this, it was done remotely and that he was delivered into the ER was the default trading center in Atlanta. And because they had the technology, and actually the lectures were broadcast, so we actually had to go to at loan. So you physically had to, but it meant you didn't have to travel to Dublin, for example. At the time, I was working in Longford. So it was a 3540 minute track across in the morning, it was ideal. And what you had was you were the cohort there, they're probably 25 or 30 people in that class all from the Midlands region who actually could attend this lecture which has been delivered live from from Dublin. So we that's where we spent our days in that. So it was a really good it, I suppose initiative at the time, because it opened up that opportunity that's effectively you could do your do your studies, why not haven't actually moved geographical location for the day or two? I was involved on a weekly basis.

Dusty Rhodes  03:59

So let's after you qualified to go into the business, did you do a lot of hands on engineering? Or did you kind of go straight for management fairly fast?

Michael Lohan  04:06

Yeah, it's it's, it's a great question. Because when I actually started, I started in very much in a technical role. So electronics, so attend this story to others, as well as that's actually I started in the printed circuit board manufacturing business. So actually, what we are we did use was pioneer hifi system. So things that actually people now are actually coming back to, again, a number of generations later so so we actually done all the printed circuit board and circuitry and an assembly for Pioneer hifi systems at the time. So that's actually where a star has a very much technically driven, you're looking at the technology board from from the product perspective and also from a process perspective. And I was fortunate because I started in the company that was relatively small in scale in Ireland, you know, a couple 100 people. So actually you're asked to multitask and do different roles. So all of a sudden you had to wear different hats. You had to be the technical product expert. You also have to be the process expert you had To help put efficiencies, you have to help with improvements. And with that, I actually started to move into more in engineering, but I had an engineering management. And it was fortunate, I suppose I had talked those up. And I was given those opportunities, number one, and secondly, that I was able to take them because what it did then is it actually gives you experience in terms of people management, you know, in terms of assessing projects is assessing technologies. So what brought you to a different sphere, I suppose in terms of just a technical element. And, and at that point, and actually, after four or five years of, of your of that experience, I actually moved to a very large multinational company called Nortel Networks, large telecommunications company will be known globally around the world at that time. And if I'm honest, the few years I spent at Nortel Networks from 1999, to 2002, probably where they were the years that's actually formed me in terms of my business acumen. Because at that stage, Jenna was put into a global environment, global supply chains, you know, the, if you want to call it the complexities and the politics that comes with your multinationals. And you had two choices, you had to learn very quickly, or as you had to adapt even faster. And that's what you have to do. And I think that's where maybe the strength of my background of, you know, engineering, practical, logical, you could take the technical elements, you could bring them together, you could understand how supply chain works. And then you could work with people and bring people with you on that journey. So, so I think they those formative years, were critically important in terms of making, if you want to call it that transition from the purely technical into a managerial leadership role over that period.

Dusty Rhodes  06:36

Do you think engineers are kind of I don't want to say born with but let you when you study at college, do you think it just kind of gives you a bit of a systems way of thinking, which means that you were then able to handle anything from technical to people to global supply chains?

Michael Lohan  06:52

Yeah, well, you know, I think I think there's a few times I think the mindset of engineers is, you know, your logical and your and your solutions orientated as well, which I think is important. And, you know, it's a bit like, there's always challenges. But the great thing about challenges is there's always a means for resolution. Now, it may not be optimal, but you can, we can always get there. And the question is how we get there. And I suppose what you learn, and what I've learned through my career is that solutions don't come in one form. And they certainly don't come just being a technical solution or a process solution, the more than likely have a hole of business requirements. And that, and that involves you all being human centric, people orientation. So the, the, you know, that's where, probably from an engineering discipline point of view, and I think, thankfully, we've probably seen more of that happening to our engineering, courseware and education over the last number of decades, making sure that there's that connected piece in terms of how you actually make this work for people, for the workforce for the business, over and including the technical aspects are so important. And it's something that I think that, you know, I can speak for myself, as an engineer, everything was about and you're very much technically driven, those softer skills. Those that acumen from a business perspective, are so so important. I think, the more you can hold that on top of that with your technical expertise. That's a formula for real success and for real growth and progression.

Dusty Rhodes  08:13

Well, listen, speaking of success, you are the buck stops at your desk in the IDA. That's a big organization to be a part of earlier in the series. I was talking to Leo Clancy, I'm sure you're aware of him. He's another engineer. He's the CEO of enterprise Ireland. You're kind of similar, but you're completely the opposite. If it can you just describe the differences between enterprise Ireland and the ID because we all hear about them every day. But yeah, it can be confusing.

Michael Lohan  08:38

Yeah, well, of course Leo is a good is a former colleague here of ideas lattice, I've worked with Leo and nor Leo very well, and really, really good guy. So I suppose from from ideas perspective, we focus on foreign direct investment. So the companies we engage with are all foreign owned. So it's our role to go and first of all, to attract them to Ireland and the benefits of coming to Ireland, and then to help them to sustain and grow here and diversify their business and so forth. Whereas Leo and his colleagues in enterprise Ireland, are exclusively focused on indigenous Irish companies, helping them to grow startups, and indeed, globally, so. So if you want to call it we're both part of the Department of Enterprise and trade. So we sit in the same parent department. There's a lot of crossover between us and collaboration between us. But we're very clear. And our focus in this enterprise, Ireland is indigenous. And we look after the FDI side, and then of course, how we can actually merge those two elements together in terms of spillover in terms of global sourcing. So for example, there's lots of excellent indigenous Irish companies that are now embedded in another core to multinationals in terms of their supply chain, and no more salt and, and engineering space. You know, and we look ahead, whether it's in terms of construction, design, deliver your product and process, you know, all our ingrained, which was really excellent Irish indigenous companies across not just the FDA copies here in Ireland. But across our global networks, which is which is incredible to see.

Dusty Rhodes  10:04

I think when you're thinking about foreign investment into this country, brands that come to mind are apple and Marianas Google and all of the big air tech companies from around the world built primarily the states. What kind of other sectors invest in

Michael Lohan  10:17

Ireland? Yeah, so you're correct we have three sectors extra four sectors which are job predominantly yes was very heavy investors from an STI perspective so So technology is one so you know, that ranges from you mentioned apple at one level your to Intel, and you know, whichever are significant investor and capital investor garland so, so ranges from everything from hardware and software to unplowed to big service providers across the telecom industry. So you have dashboard gamblers from a technology and consumer and content, you know, the large platform companies go there every day. And of course, that we have a very strong sector and as well as international financial services. So, so I think the establishment of the IFC in Ireland, you know, was was was groundbreaking and was formed with the Oh, that was great foresight at the time of the Irish of the Irish government to actually have an alternative to London or indeed to Frankfurt. And we've seen the benefit of that in terms of what the industry that we've grown here that that Ireland now is, is a real location of strain for international financial services. The third sector, obviously, then his life sciences and your that's biopharma pharma, and medical device deal, massive fuel and you know, in terms of investment, both in terms of capital, it regionally spread it's in virtually every county in Ireland has a life sciences, either company or sub supplier associated with it. And then they're highly innovative and and invest in in strong r&d and under really good collaborators. And then I suppose our our fourth segment, then is what we call our high value engineering segments. So that can vary from anything from automotive industry, to you know, Leeper, you're producing large cranes from Ireland. So you have a very broad diverse of engineering companies that sit in that, but the key to them is that they're all innovative based, looking to the future looking to the to the established or r&d centers, here's what

Dusty Rhodes  12:07

I'm delighted to hear that one of them is high value engineering sector, not that I'm hanging my hat anywhere in particular, but can you give me an example, from the last whatever, six months or a year of a project that came in?

Michael Lohan  12:18

Yeah, so we've had, we've had a few. And so if you look at Lufthansa in in challenge, actually bringing in a significant MRO activity there. And in terms of servicing, we've had quite a few actually supporting, as I mentioned, the semiconductor industry as well, which is growing, and, and obviously, growing our EO across Europe. And if you look at the sub supply base, that that exists for the life sciences industry, you know, world leading companies here supporting, as I mentioned earlier, not just to Irish sites, but internationally supply indoor sites with with our products and services. And that's been key. So we've been very fortunate in Ireland to be able to attract and support and maintain those, those entities here.

Dusty Rhodes  12:58

On the opposite end of success, you know, because it's not all easy. What kind of challenges does the IDA face them when it comes to securing investments, one of the problems you encounter?

Michael Lohan  13:09

Yeah, so the landscape for FDI is, is intensely competitive. And, you know, sometimes it can be hard maybe for for everyone to understand this, that you'll well we go to compete for an investment in the sector, as I mentioned, the reality of it is, is that in most cases, you have competing geographies, and you know, in the four corners of the world, looking to win that same investment or to learn to see those investments in their jurisdiction. So, so at an international level, the competition actually has has probably intensified over the last 18 months or 24 months. And in particular, that's the how is that manifesting itself, it's manifesting itself in in the context of the industrial policies now being adopted, both within the US or within Europe, as well, and indeed, in the fairies has altered. So we're seeing a higher percentage, I suppose, urban center being offered in certain circumstances. And we've seen that today in such dire react in the US to the chips act that's being proposed in Europe. So that landscape has certainly changed. I think, from an Ireland perspective, we need to be conscious of that, as well. Of course, if we look locally, then we have to look at it as you know, our own, you know, we have been very successful for the last decade plus in terms of FDI, in terms in terms of economic prosperity in Ireland, in general, our population is growing, you know, our enterprise base, both foreign and indeed, indigenous have grown. And that leads us to I suppose we have, if you want to call it the challenges of success, and those challenges, as you know, they're well documented, you know, our housing capacity or infrastructure capacity to meet future growth. There are key elements that we have to continue to address and make sure that we have adequate plans in place for the next generation of investment.

Dusty Rhodes  14:59

Well, I mean, the housing crisis, as you said, is one of the things how do investors when they're looking at Ireland's because you need to house workers, they need accommodation. And it's so hard to find these days. How do investors look at those things?

Michael Lohan  15:11

Yeah, so I think what we're seeing from from investors is they're very aware of, of, let's call it the carrying capacity that Ireland has. But they're also very aware of the commitments from the state and from government in terms of resolving some of these elements. So you mentioned housing, and really look at housing, for example. And even even today's numbers, I think, from from a number of kommentarer, showed that you know, what, we are going to break 30,000 completions this year, which is really purchase really positive. The housing for all strategy is certainly key to that. I'd haven't done all of government approach. And as I said previously, I think what we're seeing now is an acceleration of abduct delivery, because as we see with our investment base at the moment, they're making decisions based on the next three, four and five year cycles of growth. And the housing for all strategies is, is really starting to show its momentum now. And I think that's given credibility to our offering. And even if we look at the last number of weeks, the number of announcements and investments that we've had publicly announced, you know, verify the fact that, you know, there's trust in our system that we can deliver, when we commit to delivering in terms of infrastructure, such as true housing, that we will, that will follow through. And I think that's what investors are confidence on. There's a trust that are low, but actually meet those demands.

Dusty Rhodes  16:28

Do you think that engineering as a subject in itself is an issue? Well, not an issue, but it is something that investors specifically consider but what's available here.

Michael Lohan  16:37

So I think you're correct, or there is actually a number of things that investors consider but but talent, uh, you know, and the availability of STEM graduates and STEM talent in particular, is particularly, it's particularly important. And while we were fortunate in Ireland, when we look at the statistics, in terms of our STEM graduates in terms of, first of all, the quantum, the quality, the diversity of of those STEM graduates are all positives. And then we also, of course, have the added bonus of being open an attractive location for for foreign graduates and indeed, talented individuals to come and be part of the ecosystem here in Ireland. So that's a very strong proposition that Ireland has to offer. And in some cases, almost a unique proposition that nit that isn't replicated around the world. And as I said earlier, we're fortunate in Ireland that if we look at the engineering disciplines that we have in Ireland, those core engineering disciplines that we have here are world renowned in terms of the quality in terms of delivery, at some of the companies that we have here, you're delivering, not just here in Ireland, but delivering internationally, that is a unique element. And I think, in the last two decades, in particular, from my time in IDA, that's been a marked, I suppose, differentiator between our proposition that was a decade ago to what our proposition is, today, we in Ireland are seem to be leaning at the front edge of that technology of that innovation of that deployment. I think that comes down to the skills base that we have, or when in doubt, I think is to engineering resources that's available to us.

Dusty Rhodes  18:06

And what is it? Do you think that makes Irish engineers stand out?

Michael Lohan  18:11

I think there's a few things that actually make Irish engineers and Irish talent stand out. Number one is I think we have an inherent curiosity. And we always want to strive to deliver and to improve. And, and you know, I hear this directly from our client companies, or our go to CEOs and CTC CTOs, applying companies, and that's the work but the workforce in Ireland is unique in terms of their ability to take complex issues, and to deliver them, you know, in a very simple manner, actually. So it goes back to that everything we talked about being solutions oriented is and I think what we have in Ireland, we have that uniqueness in us that we actually see problems as a real opportunity. And we don't take the status quo as the way things should be always don't we actually can can see different means of delivery. And more importantly, we actually can bring those to fruition and implement them. And I think that's what really sets Ireland apart in terms of that if you want to call it that human capital and intellect that we have from from an engineering and the process perspective,

Dusty Rhodes  19:15

quality people then might sum it up, but quality people come with quality price tags, how do we make ourselves competitive on the on the financial side?

Michael Lohan  19:23

Yes. So so you're correct, though. Quality doesn't it's not about being expensive. I think there's a cost associated quality and that cost brings value. And when we look at your if we think about the the workforce and activities that's happened in Ireland, you know, we have some we have products everything from if you want to call it almost disposable consumer products that are manufactured in Ireland, but are manufactured, highly automated, digitize so therefore the unit cost is controlled and managed so so that's where technology can come to the fore where expertise can come to the fore and the tinkers while the other side. Just remember that, you know, talented people bring new innovations and new products to market, as well. So So you have that balance between, you know, its value versus cost. But you also rice, you know, we also have to be mindful of competitiveness, because I go back to my earlier conversation, we have to compete. And, you know, not just greenfields, investments are competed for every investment is competed for, whether it's an expansion, whether it's a new mandate, all of those have to be competed for. So therefore, competitiveness and material, our competitiveness, and productivity is key to us.

Dusty Rhodes  20:33

It's a really good point. And I'm going to ask you this about the perspective of somebody who's working in engineering, and they're looking at their salary, or they want to move up the ladder or something like that, instead of looking at the dollar cost, or the euro cost, or whatever it happens to be, should you be kind of thinking about, well, what is the value that I'm bringing, rather than the price? So what everything you were saying there? Does it apply just as much to the human being?

Michael Lohan  20:57

When, you know, I think, let's be honest, our good friend, our Excel spreadsheets will only measure one dimension, which is cost. We're all familiar with that. Right? Yeah. And we could be subject to data. In fact, we have, I may have done it myself on a few occasions. But that's one measure, right. And when we go back to it, that can also we as Ireland, let's be honest, we've moved, as I said earlier, you're our our proposition in Ireland is very different now than it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, our proposition is based on innovative products, innovative people delivering high quality and therefore bringing high margin and value to your business. And let's be honest, that doesn't come for free, nor show this, I think there's a value in that. And I think that's what you we have to assess and, and be conscious of is that, that ultimately, where that actually, if you want to call it where the rubber hits the road, for industry is when you see the investments, and you see the scale of investment and the brands that are investing in Ireland, it doesn't matter whether you're in life sciences, or in technology or in financial services, you know, those brands are investing here because they see value creation, they see impact on moral more so as wide as remember is, they're also seeing real leadership skills that they are developing in Ireland and leading from Ireland being deployed across their organizations globally as well. So so value comes in many different forms is not just product or service. It's also people as leadership as delivery as

Dusty Rhodes  22:21

I've noticed that myself a that, you know, kind of there's certain customers who are kind of they're watching the pennies are particularly when you're looking at a business to consumer kind of stuff, like you know, but when you're dealing with large brands and large multinational companies, I don't want to say that they're not penny pinchers. But it doesn't mean that they are Flowdock with it with with a cash they do watch where they're spending it, but they do value value, strain sentence, but I get what you're saying,

Michael Lohan  22:47

I get what you're saying. I'm not saying that they're going to spend every dime, they have rice to do that. Right. But But there's a difference between cost and value. And I think once if you end up in under cost argument, okay? That's that's never a good position. No matter who you are, or where you are, you have to be in the value side. And so the question is, how we bring value, what that value looks like, how you monetize it, how you deliver us? Yeah, that's

Dusty Rhodes  23:13

exactly what I'm hoping people might think about after listening to the podcast, and kind of continuing then on that strand of thinking, trend, thinking about people's careers and stuff like that. Do you think we need more emphasis on upskilling? And continuous learning within engineering?

Michael Lohan  23:29

I would think so. Yeah. And the bonus, I could say this from a point of my own experience. You know, it's a bit like you, you come through an engineering discipline or engineer, or course, and no, I gotta say this, no, it might be controversial, but we tend to do a lot of hours or more in, in our academic cycle, maybe in comparison to other others. So there's, it's a heavy, it's a heavy workload, that heavy commitment. And most people when they come out of getting their primary degree or whatever, are actually said, I'm done. Thanks very much. I don't want to see another another piece of textbook. But the harsh reality of it is I think what's important is if we want to evolve ourselves, the important thing is that there's always areas of new knowledge, we can add that I'm not saying you have to go back and do for Masters in the role. And because I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But what I do think there's lots of things you can add to her, either your to bring you personal development. And the case is, for example, if I go back to my own example, know, I mentioned Nortel Networks. As part of Nortel Networks, I got an opportunity to have some personal development rooted on the business school. It exposed me to elements of business models of economics, you know, which, if I'm honest, I really wasn't exposed to before and in any real sense. And that just gives me a different perspective on the world as well in terms of what makes the world tick, how things are connected together. And I would encourage anyone, no matter where you are in your career, and in fact, I'm no different today than I was 10 or 15 years ago. I have to continue to be curious I have to continue to look to Where I can I can, I suppose, add additional strengths to my offering. And that's something we should continue to do. And I think, as a population, we may not be the strongest advocates of lifelong learning. But we certainly should be. And I certainly would, because I think, as I look back myself at the moment, you know, and they don't all have to be, if you want to call it certified creditors, there's lots of areas you can do from a personal development bank's perspective. And of course, there's lots of other areas you can bring in, in terms of, you know, wellness, you know, diversity, there's lots of other elements that can complement your, your base skills, your technical skills, r&d, job leadership skills.

Dusty Rhodes  25:39

So are you telling me that Michael, that as the CEO of one of the biggest state agencies, with the idea that you at the top there are also thinking of upskilling and continuous learning for yourself?

Michael Lohan  25:48

Oh, I certainly am. Yeah, so so so that personal development plan is important that the challenge, which it is, of course, for all of us is carving out the time, and let's be honest, to do that. And that can be a challenge. And that's where you have to be disciplined, you know, uncertainly, that's something that I've you know, I have to do myself is I have to set out, realistically, one or two elements that I can do over probably a 24 or 36 month period, I'm not going to do any more than that. So I just need to be realistic and be targeted.

Dusty Rhodes  26:19

Tell me about STEM subjects, because you mentioned that earlier, and kind of one of the things that I hear in engineering is trying to get talent into the industry is just a nightmare. But trying to get female talent into the industry is is just crazy. Where are we? Where do we stand from your point of view? Where do we stand with, you know, kind of females getting involved with STEM subjects? What's working? What isn't?

Michael Lohan  26:43

Where do we stand? I think we're making progress. But we have a long way to go. And to be truthful, as the father of two daughters, I failed miserably myself. So I'm in no position to, to to give advice, despite all of that. And why is that? And because, you know, again, I think we have to show this as a viable and open alternative. And I think, you know, again, I can give you from my own experience of this, I think, is that that's where the challenge is, it can't be seen to be a barrier it can't be seen to for young girls, we have to, we have to give your positive exposure to STEM subjects earlier, you know, the biggest problem is fear, or the total fear against some STEM subjects, you know, and then if you think about maths, you know, as to you know, others maths versus nosh and all those elements. But you know, we have to get away from that. And we have to sort of try and break down those perceptions or barriers that are there for all right, and I think it's particularly and the pronounced for females. And I think that's something we need to do more of now there is some great work happening as well, we have to recognize that, like the Irish group, in terms of foundation, in terms of what they're doing is fabulous, I attended the session, transit was a pre COVID or post COVID. I forget, but but in car, and it was it was brilliant to see all of those young, young students, female students, as part of a massive, you know, event in Cork, where you had multiple number of companies that are showing off the opportunities or the career progression, we need to do more of that. And I think when I say we, I think industry needs to help in that context as well, because I think the more we can get those messages out there. And the more we can show that there's a path here in terms of career, but more importantly, that there's our rewarding, fulfilling and diverse career that you can get through STEM subjects, you can design the next product that might be save a patient's life, no at one level, or you could create you could be you're constructing a major a major investment project, or infrastructure project, or indeed a component that goes into some part of a spacecraft. So there's everything in between in terms of that opportunity. The question is, are we telling the story strong enough, often enough? And are we showing enough leadership to make that happen?

Dusty Rhodes  28:59

And if I haven't, right, what I wish do is they're more or less kind of telling that story of STEM subjects in a positive light specifically to young women who are coming up through the secondary system and trying to get them into the third level of education. That's correct. Yeah. Good, good. Good. I wish that it is there is a website. Absolutely. Check it out. Because as Michael says, they've done some amazing stuff. And if you have an engineering firm, you might get involved. Only good things are gonna come out of it. However, Michael, I'm not gonna let you off the hook. Because you did say that in this area. You're a failure. Why?

Michael Lohan  29:29

Yeah, why? Yeah. Well, it's, it's interesting. Well, you haven't met my two daughters. Yeah, yeah. But but you know, why? And like everything else in life, right? I think I can't, like I or any other parent for that matter. And I can only speak for myself, right? My kids are can't be declared it wants to be they have to have their own career. And all I could do was try and provide them with with the options though, the both have actually gotten into education, that element so hopefully mic preamps that bring the next generation forward in that context. But you know, it's a bit like, I always got that when you might like that, or you might be good to have, but I'm not. And I'm like, Well, you can be, here's how you deal with but again, I think a hometown to the influence that you have early on in your career. And from my own perspective, I know that that, you know, we can all remember probably, that that teacher who actually helped us through and medicine, or helped us to understand ourselves physics, or chemistry, or maths or whatever it might be, right r&d, that lecture that actually, you know, it was that high moments, no, I got it, right, we have to create more of those moments, I think, for all of our young people, and especially for females and stem,

Dusty Rhodes  30:40

the thing I find about being a parent is that there is no book or there's no right or wrong, and you just you kind of you don't just learn your way through it, you struggle your way through it, and try and learn as best as I like, I completely get what you're talking about, like, you know, and you can just kind of guide them. And once once they're off doing whatever it is they're happy with. That's that's the main thing. But now that you've got a little bit of experience under your belt, how would you have done it differently with your daughters to try and maybe get them interested? Would you have done anything differently?

Michael Lohan  31:07

Yeah, if I'm honest, probably could have, you know, so. So it, maybe I could have done more, you know, outside of that call the formal educational system to expose them more to the opportunity, if possibly, I suppose though, the context is like, it's a bit like, in my experience, see, and it's probably better to and can if you want to call it teaching or preaching for the ones that are better Ward, so I think the more we can expose young young adults to the opportunity, and I'll give you an example, for that. I remember, my, my daughter has taken a trip as part of continued waving transition year. But actually, they ended up going to Microsoft's Office in Dublin and apostolic. Now, I tell you, I never heard more about Microsoft and the importance of it, because they were just blown away with everything in terms of the environment. But it probably was four years, two days, truth be told, that really probably needs to happen, in my view, probably earlier for those cohort because they probably had too many preconceptions and anti process. But stata had a major impact in terms of just the space, what to do with the technology that are deploying it, the more we can expose, at an earlier age, the possibilities and opportunities start to raise across our industry. spheres. I think the better I think there can't be a downside from that. Personally,

Dusty Rhodes  32:29

that is an absolutely brilliant point. Because I think transition year is an amazing year for anybody and as you say, just to open you up to new experiences, but the fact you are saying that it's too late, oh my God, you're right. They're teenagers of that stage, they already know everything. They have a grasp of the same things anyway. So if you had that, like, I mean, if you had a year, possibly between the end of primary before they go into secondary war, or maybe there was something in sixth class or something like that, where they were deliberately brought out on day trips to the likes of Microsoft, whatever it is, that that could be a thing.

Michael Lohan  33:05

It's like the young scientist space, you know, it's the area where you can I think the earlier we intervene, and know and it's not gonna be for everyone, right? Let's be honest, either, right? That's pointing to area we give exposure and give experience, the better chance we have of actually bringing that true, I would think so. So the more we can promote that, the more that, you know, I think if companies are listening this to my ask who says what, what can we do as an individual company that could, you know, tap into the six local schools around this as a starting point, and you know, have everyone done their six local schools, before long, every school would be covered. And you'd find that you'd have a network where things would start to move as to wanting to really happens in Ireland is, momentum can happen quite quickly. And connections happened very quickly in Ireland. So, you know, if, if that was the case, and we could get companies, as I say, taken on one or two or six spoons, whoever it might be, we could see a change in inside of it inside of a decade.

Dusty Rhodes  34:00

This is gonna have to stop you there because you give me way too many brilliant ideas. All right, let's get back to the IDA. One of the things that you're very passionate about is regional opportunities in Ireland and expanding outside of Dublin. Why?

Michael Lohan  34:19

Why What does the number of reasons why and I think first of all, from if we think about from a narrative perspective, getting balanced regional development is critically important for us as a state and as a nation and as as a culture and as a society and as I think we've seen the real benefits of that and it's amazing you look at the the growth of centers such as Galway Galway is a recognized center globally for medical device you know, it's incredible you know, that you know, we have we're competing with a Minnesota of the world is actually Galway is in that same in that same space in terms of scale and you look as you know, the western seaboard. glimmery transformation at aspect has happened in Limerick on the back of a number of key investments for trauma Life Sciences perspective and a financial services perspective has has really revolutionized the whole West Coast and the Midwest, in particular. So I think I can say the same for slide one says the same for Waterford in terms of doors investments, and indeed for the Midlands. So we've had really strong investment. And what does that do? It, it does a number of things, actually, first of all, if we think about what we just talked about the next generation of talent, it gives that next generation of talent opportunity actually to live and stay in their communities, it gives that opportunity for that talent actually, to be in their in their local, academic and, and universities. And that's why I think the current scale of our universities and regional universities are so important for us, as we look to technological universities to view the future, we now have clusters built across our regional areas, so that there's multiple benefits from a society perspective, from an economic perspective, and indeed, from an enterprise perspective, because it opens up all of that skill base that you can make available. And of course, then there's also the fact that, you know, it keeps communities vibrant. And it gives a counterbalance, as we know, to Dublin, and of course, the other elements we have to consider as well as in make sure that we can use all of our infrastructure across the country, you're in in an appropriate manner as well. So there are many, many benefits accruing from from having a balanced strategy, which we have from an FDI perspective

Dusty Rhodes  36:25

of all the FDI investment last year, what kind of percentage would you say went to Dublin and what percentage went outside?

Michael Lohan  36:31

Yeah, so we have says a public target actually, that we over this current strategy period of we will have 100 investments and total 400 of which will be in outside of Dublin, and we're currently tracking on are just slightly ahead of that figure. So, so 50% of our, what we're bringing into Ireland is actually outside of Dublin. And that said, I suppose we were probably the only agency to actually make that sort of commitment from a regional perspective, you know, so we put our color near their color to the mass and number of years ago, and that we've committed to DAX, and we've, we've put our money as well into that investment. So we've led off with, with our property program to make sure that we have your scholars are receiving an environment that actually attracts investment as well. So so making sure we have those business parks, making sure we have facilities ready for companies to go so. So like, it's not just enough to say if you actually have to deal with and we've led in the front from doing that as well, that continues to be successful for us. And that could continue to be our, our focus and over the over the next strategy term as well.

Dusty Rhodes  37:35

Finally, Michael, if you were to look back at yourself, and you were talking to your younger self, what what advice would you give yourself as a 20 or 25, or even a 30 year old?

Michael Lohan  37:47

I'd say the advice I give to myself is take every opportunity that comes and to actually trust yourself because you know, probably as you start your career, you have doubts as to you know, is that the right decision? Or should I speak here or you'll I think have trust in yourself. And I think the other thing is your advice to myself is learn as quickly as you can how to how to interact and engage with others because the success your success is going to be based on how you engage with your with your peers, how you can influence and negotiate. I think the more you can actually hone that area in your career, the more you can benefit from a clearer

Dusty Rhodes  38:26

Michael Lohan, CEO of the IDA and engineer thank you so much for talking to us today.

Michael Lohan  38:33

Thank you Dusty a pleasure.

Dusty Rhodes  38:35

If you'd like to find out more about Michael and some of the topics we talked about today, including iWish you'll find notes and links in the show notes area of your player right now. And of course for information on all engineering topics across Ireland and career development opportunities for yourself. There are libraries of information on our website at engineersireland.ie That's it for our episode today. The podcast was produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland to click the Follow button on your podcast player so you get access to all our past and future shows automatically. Until next time from myself Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening

Engineers are incredibly innovative and ambitious, but having the right skills and mindset is key to having your ideas heard and supported.

Through self-development and continuous learning you can make yourself stand out in the crowd. Today we find out what education options are available to engineers and what skills you need to focus on to become an invaluable pi-shaped professional.

Our expert today is an electronic engineer who is incredibly passionate about professional development and learning. She is the former Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies and current Director of UL@Work at University of Limerick, Professor Ann Ledwith.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Things we spoke about

01:09 Ann’s Start In Engineering

05:03 How to make an impression and progress

09:19 Transversal Skills and becoming a pi-shaped professional

13:27 The difference between management and leadership

16:20 Advice for young engineers pursuing leadership

18:13 Business-oriented skills for engineering

20:30 How to approach continued learning

21:54 Further education opportunities with UL@Work

24:50 Learning time commitment and workplace support

Guest details

Professor Ann Ledwith is a graduate of N.I.H.E Limerick where she obtained a degree in Electronic Engineering.  She subsequently completed an MBA at the University of Limerick and a PhD in Managing Product Development at the University of Brighton. She has held a variety of positions at UL including Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies, Director of Continuing and Professional Education, and Assistant Dean of Research (Adult and Continuing Education) with the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Currently Prof Ledwith is the Director of HCI and UL@Work, and is responsible for delivering UL’s Human Capital Initiative project, UL@Work, which aims to develop digital, industry 4.0, talent through flexible, innovative and technology-enabled, experiential learning; linking enterprise and education to form a co-designed future learning environment.  She is passionate about the role of the university in supporting regional growth and currently chairs Explore Engineering, an industry-led initiative to  increase the quality and quantity of engineering talent (apprentice, technicians and engineers) in the region.

Prof Ledwith worked for over twelve years as a Product Development Engineer and as a Manager of Product Development in small high-technology firms.  She spent 2 years managing the Centre for Project Management at the University of Limerick.  Professor Ledwith has a keen interest in work-based students and flexible learning. Throughout her academic career, she has designed and delivered part-time and blended programmes for both under- and post-graduate students on topics such as Project Management, Entrepreneurship, Innovation Management, Technology Management and Reliability.  Her research interests include new product development, project management, R&D management, innovation and technology management in small firms.

Website: www.ul.ie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-ledwith-65873a/

Further education links:

https://www.ul.ie/gps/professionalflexible-programmes

https://www.ul.ie/gps/microcredentials

https://www.ul.ie/gps/springboard-courses

https://www.ul.ie/gps/professionalflexible-programmes/apprenticeships

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/ 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

Quotes

You have to be willing to step up, you have to be willing to say, ‘Yeah, I can take charge of this project, or I can manage a few people.’ - Ann Ledwith

When you're working with people, you need a certain amount of single mindedness and focus, but you also need to be able to bring your people along with you, you need to appreciate and listen to what people are saying. You need to have a vision, you need to be able to communicate that vision, and you need to be able to convince people that's where they want to be as well. - Ann Ledwith

We often talk about a pi-shaped professional, you need these broad skills along the top, and then your areas of expertise. You need both if you want to be successful. - Ann Ledwith

I think that sense of having a vision of how you want to move things forward is very important, but that's useless unless you can bring people with you - Ann Ledwith

It is so important for job satisfaction that people can see that they've contributed to something. I think that's why people follow leaders because they feel that it's adding more meaning and more relevance to what they're doing. - Ann Ledwith

The first thing is to let people know you're there and to let people know that you do have ambition. Very often that's the toughest step for a young engineer, we're not taught to go forward and to share your ideas like that. But I think it's very important that you make sure people realize that the potential that you have - Ann Ledwith

One of the key things if you are getting on that journey of continuous education is to get the support from your manager. Tell them how this program is actually going to progress you, it's not just that you're getting skills, but your company is getting skills - Ann Ledwith

Transcription

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes 00:00

In your engineering career, do you want to be a manager or leader? And what's the difference? We're about to find out.

Ann Ledwith 00:07

When you get into leadership, you have a vision, you're able to say, well, this is how I think things should be. First, that's useless, unless you can bring people with you.

Dusty Rhodes 00:21

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes, and welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal podcast. Most successful engineers agree that continuous learning is paramount to a successful and progressive career in engineering. But when innovation and technology are moving at such a rapid pace today, it can feel overwhelming to keep up. So today, we're going to find out what further education options are available to engineers and what skills you can develop to help move yourself forward and upwards in your career. Our guest today is incredibly passionate about professional development and learning. She is the former Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies and the current director of UL@Work, at the University of Limerick, Ann Ledwith. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you. So listen, tell me Ann you're a big advocate for careers in engineering. How did you get into this business? How did you know it was the right path for you?

Ann Ledwith 01:18

I suppose it was a bit serendipitous when I was at school and ended up breaking desolations in Limerick, we didn't have physics and I decided I wanted to do physics. So about four of us had to go to the local Christian Brothers school that was just across the road to do physics. And up to probably the end of fifth year, I was going to be a dentist, I'd probably be a lot richer if I was a dentist but who knows I wouldn't be happier. But all the boys were going to physics, we're all going to do engineering. So I said, and I was good at physics, I was good at math and those types of subjects. And I said, Well, if they're going to be engineers, then I should be an engineer too. So to be honest, it wasn't a career that had ever entered my mind. Until I heard my classmates talking about the classmates and my physics class talking about it. Now he's helped that we have a passionate female physics teacher as well, that was very, very supportive. But that's where I decided to do engineering. And at the time, and he, as it was then was just starting, they had a very good program in electronic engineering. And that's where I ended up with quite a few of my colleagues from our physics class, Limerick as well.

Dusty Rhodes 02:30

So when you got out into the real world, what kind of engineering work were you doing?

Ann Ledwith 02:34

Well, I did electronic engineering, and I worked for a while with analog devices, I moved to Germany on a contract for about a year. And then I came back to Limerick and worked with a company called Interpro. As a design engineer and an entrepreneur, we were designing automatic test equipment for power supplies. So I was involved in hardware, and software firmware, and worked there for about seven, eight years, it was a small company, it was a startup, a great place for an engineer to start. Because I think in a smaller company like that, you're exposed to everything you're exposed to how sales work, how orders are fulfilled, how manufacturing happens. And I felt that was a really, really good start and foundation for my career in engineering. And that's where I started to get opportunities for leadership as well. Again, in a smaller company, I started being the manager of our software development and ended up being the R&D manager in the company. So I was looking after all of our development. But I suppose at that stage, I knew the business inside out, I had been there for a good number of years and knew everybody involved. So it was a very interesting and very kind of exciting time.

Dusty Rhodes 03:44

I liked the way you say that you went into management. And you mentioned leadership because the two are almost completely different things. And it's something I want to delve into a little later. But looking back at your engineering career, what would you say is the one thing that you're most proud of?

Ann Ledwith 04:00

Oh, that's, that's a hard one. Because I moved, my career changed quite a bit. So while I was at Interpro, I was very proud. We developed a new system, a new test system, I was responsible for developing the software and how the software looked, and also for developing some of the hardware modules on that. And it was definitely very rewarding to see the equipment in use in companies to see, you know, something that you were able to step back and say, Well, I designed that, you know, and it's part of a production for and there were maybe four or five of these things lined up churning through power supplies, testing them, and you can kind of say, well, well, I did that. That was me. So I think that's one of the things that's great about engineering is that we make things and very often when you make things you can see the things that you made, and you can see them working and people using them. And whether it's something else kind of mundane as a piece of test equipment, or a new bridge or you know, a new mobile device or whatever it is but we make things and we make things that work and I That's one of the things that I really love about a career in engineering.

Dusty Rhodes 05:03

So one of the things that I do want to chat about a little bit later is management and leadership because there's a huge difference between them. But can I start by asking you about your own journey kind of moving from the shop floor as it were into management and into leadership? Then how does somebody move upwards in a business? What steps should they take?

Ann Ledwith 05:23

Like, I guess, to a certain extent, it's different depending on the business you're in, like I was in a small company, and I was willing to take on the responsibility, I think that's an awful lot of it, that you have to be willing to step up, you have to be willing to say, Yeah, I can take charge of this project, or I can manage a few people. And that's not for everybody. But I think, you know, if you have a bit of ambition, and if you like to, my I hate to say if you're a bit of a control freak, like you like to determine the outcome of things, and I think an awful lot of engineers do, like you don't like things to just happen to you, you like to have some control over what's happening to you and how systems are developed and, and how you make decisions. You know, in my case, it was in how we were developing our software. And I actually ended up having some quite strong views about that, because of how our system was configured and how I felt it should work. And we'd be better to move to something that was more modular. And it's by deciding that you want to take ownership, I think it's an awful lot of where you're at that you have to decide, I can do this, I will step up and do it. And to look at the other people around you and think, look, I can do at least as good a job as they can do. So why not me? But I think maybe two things have to happen. One is that your company has to appreciate you and be willing to promote you. And by and large, people are happy to prod people who want to do the work. But I think an awful lot of it has to come internally from you, as an engineer, that you're saying, Yes, I'm willing to take this step forward. Yes, it's not beyond me to decide, I'm not just going to implement a design what I'm being asked to design, but I actually want to be more involved in making those decisions and directing what's happening and have more control over where our product or technology or whatever else it is, is going.

Dusty Rhodes 07:07

There is a world of difference in designing something and controlling that thing, as you say, and then controlling people, which is the team. But there are similar two skills at the same time. So what kind of skills do you think are important for progression in that way?

Ann Ledwith 07:21

Like, I think of the two, it's controlling the people and managing the people that number one is actually what's critical to making projects happen. And is something that's more difficult. And I think it is something that comes a little bit more with age, you need a bit of experience and a bit of maturity before you can start to manage other people and bring them along. That's my opinion on it. I think you need a lot of empathy. When you're working with people, you need a certain amount of kind of single-mindedness and focus. But you also need to be able to bring your people along with you, you need to appreciate and listen to what people are saying. But you need to have a vision, you need to be able to communicate that vision. And you need to be able to convince people, that's where they want to be as well. But they are two different skill sets. And of the two I'd say the one that takes a bit longer to develop is the people management and the people management skills.

Dusty Rhodes 08:16

And where do you learn those skills? Or where do you start learning those skills?

Ann Ledwith 08:20

You start in kindergarten, you know, I often think that how you interact with people starts at the very, very beginning. But it is kind of when you get into your career. And when you start moving forward, I think you just have to observe what's happening around you. Now there are lots of programs that will help. And I know when I was kind of going through that management phase earlier in my career, I did take part in a leadership program. And it was very useful. But an awful lot of the use of being on a program like that is really talking to peers and talking to colleagues and finding what are other people doing and realizing that you know, other people have the same problems as you have heard, and they have different ways of solving them and different ways of going about things. So I think anywhere in my life when I've gone back for additional learning, the learning itself has been useful, but almost more useful is that peer-to-peer learning. And I think that that still holds true in almost any area of kind of upskilling and rescaling is that peer learning can be really, really important. So I think that's a key place where you learn and where you observe what people are doing. 

Dusty Rhodes 09:19

One word I have heard bandied around in relation to this is transversal skills. What exactly are transversal skills?

Ann Ledwith 09:26

They're just a new thing. Know, I think they are a new name for things that we always had to do you know, for things that you gained with experience, but I think they are a very important skill set that we have maybe over the last years started to kind of pigeonhole different people into particular professions and particular skill sets. But yes, when you get out into the workplace, you need to be able to work with people. You need to be able to communicate effectively. You need to be able to manage teams and work in a team. And they're all those kinds of what used to be softer skills and are now more commonly referred to as power skills. But to be honest, you know, way back kind of 1015 years ago, when I was more involved in engineering programs here at UL and getting programs accredited, there were always those learning outcomes that were about managing teams and being aware of society and being aware of the people around you. And making sure that engineers had those skills, as well as having the technical skills, which I think is really, really important. So I think transversal skills are very, very useful, I think they're things that should be part of all of our degrees. And all of our undergraduates should get them, I think, to be honest, are coming to the forum. Now, post COVID, because we've had whatever it is for three, four years, where people have been working in very kind of isolated ways. And it's almost like we've got to bring them back together and teach people how to work with each other and work together. So we often talk about that kind of pie-shaped professional, that you need these broad skills along the top, and then your areas of expertise. But you need both if you want to be successful.

Dusty Rhodes 11:02

That's another phrase that I've heard is T shaped professionals that somebody is somebody brought up at the top. And yeah, when

Ann Ledwith 11:08

I'm saying pie, I'm just putting an extra leg on that T because very often we need somebody who you know, understands it, as well as understanding telecoms, or whether it's very close, or circuit design or, or even medicine, we're seeing so much more of an overlap between an awful lot of these professions that that in areas of biological sciences, medical sciences, that research is really delving into how technology is informing that how AI is informing that. 

Dusty Rhodes 11:39

So you need more than one expertise very often when you're thinking about your career, and you're kind of thinking I want to move on and do something else... engineering related, what kind of opportunities are there for engineers outside of the direct industry itself?

Ann Ledwith 11:52

I take there are a lot of different careers and career paths that engineers can take. That's one of the things that I really like about an engineering degree and would encourage, you know, parents talking to kids to look at engineering, because I think sometimes when you're at the start of it, you think, Well, I'm going to be an engineer, and that's what I'm going to do. But to actually develop a skill set as an engineer, that can apply in an awful lot of different areas. So you would see engineers talk turning up in sales and marketing, in systems an awful lot in education in a lot of different spheres. And I think one of the things that an engineering degree gives you is almost a way of thinking as a systems way of thinking because I find that something that to me an awful lot in my career, that I can look at, you know, a problem or a mess, you know, what, whether it's to do with engineering, whether it's to do with how we're structuring a program at work, or whether it's dealing with another project at work, and I find I can put a structure on it, you know, I can pull the bits of it together that matters. I can say, well, this is how we should do this. This is the way we should put this as a project. And I think it's that kind of high-level systems thinking that engineers are actually quite good at that there is a kind of a way that you think that that's very structured and systematized and you think, well, we're going to do that, and how are we going to measure it? And how will we know? What resources will we need? So you start to think in a far more kind of structured way. And I think that can apply across the board. And that's why you find engineers, very often in management roles in a lot of industries. So they've left behind the engineering, and they're working in kind of general management areas.

Dusty Rhodes 13:27

I think what I hear you saying is engineers are problem solvers. And you know, leadership and management are all about solving problems with teams, we often the arrow of the importance of leadership in engineering, one is the difference between management because lots of people go into management, or very few people become leaders. What is the difference between management and leadership?

Ann Ledwith 13:49

I think one of the key differences is when you get into leadership, you have a vision, and maybe you have visions about several visions, but you have, you know, you're able to say, well, this is how I think things should be. And I was actually thinking about this recently. And that's one thing that I found that the later stages of my career, that I'm actually much more willing to step forward and say, Well, this is where I think you should actually go with this. And this is how it should look in the future. And I think that sense of having a vision that you want to show how you want to move things forward is very important. But that's useless unless you can bring people with you. So I think it's being able to do both of those things. Because we can think of and even within companies, you will get these people who have crazy mad ideas, but nobody listens to them. And that can sometimes be big, it's not necessarily the best thing. But I think if you can bring people along with you on those towards what that vision is, if you can be inclusive in developing how you think you want things to go forward and actually bring things with you. I think that that's the key with leadership is that you can have that vision, but that you could communicate and bring people along with you towards that vision.

Dusty Rhodes 14:58

Then when you are a leader either and you have a vision and you're going for this particular goal to improve the world. And you've got 50 PP behind you. And man, I like the way that guys think I'm going to work with him. Alright, so your leader, how does that kind of leadership improve the quality of work and experience within a company, for the people who were behind you and supporting you?

Ann Ledwith 15:20

Well, I think it gives you I mean, there's a great sense of grace, satisfaction and being part of a team, that that is working towards something and something that's going to improve whether it's improving how we work, improving how we teach, improving what our product looks like. But that is working towards improvement and to feel that you're listened to that you're part of that you're of achieving something, and that you're confident contributing. And I actually think that I mean, that is so important for job satisfaction is that people can see that they've contributed to something that has made an improvement. And I think that's why people would very often follow leaders because they feel that that it adds more meaning it's adding more relevance to what they're doing. And they're actually they're achieving something, as opposed to, you know, the same thing as I did yesterday. And here's what I'm going to be doing next week, and my manager says, I should do it x, y, and z because that's the way the company does it. And I think that's part of the difference. And it's a much more exciting place to be, you know, when you're trying to create something new or do something new.

Dusty Rhodes 16:20

So this is developing really nicely because a leader is somebody who has vision, he's got people who agree with our vision, who are following him, but the leader is also interested in helping the people who are following him, develop themselves. So if I'm sitting here, and I'm an engineer, and I'm kind of thinking this sounds good, I want to get into management, because I've got ideas, I want to change the world in my own way. I mean, how do I start all of the, you know, I'm just working at a desk as a regular engineer, how do you start the journey towards management and leadership?

Ann Ledwith 16:53

So you're sitting at your desk, but where are you? You know, why does your company what are you passionate about? You know, are you designing, you know, a communication system that you think should be done differently and should use a different type of technology? And I think it depends on your context. And I think part of kind of the first thing that you need to do is to step up and to make sure that the people who are working with you, and particularly the people who are senior to you in the company, know that you want to go further, I know that you want to take on a leadership role. And they're aware that you're there. So very often kind of as a junior engineer there, and there's a tendency to keep my head down and get the work done. That's not going to get too far if you want to get involved in leadership. And you don't have to be the person who's shouting for the trees or anything like that. But you do have to be the person who will make sure that their voice is heard, and their opinion is heard. And if you have a good idea, well articulated and share it. So I think the first thing is to let people know you're there and to let people know that you do have ambition. And I think very often that's the toughest step for a young engineer. Because I mean, very often we're not taught to kind of go forward and to share your ideas like that. But I think it's very important that you, you make sure people see you and you make sure people realize the potential that you have.

Dusty Rhodes 18:13

You think if you're going to then go into the leadership side of things that you need to do you need to be business orientated. For that, you have to do a business degree on top of everything else.

Ann Ledwith 18:25

I think that depends, I think in some of the kinds of larger technical companies, they would have a route for leadership on an engineering side that needn't be as involved in the business. But to be honest, I think, really, so if you're in a smaller company, then there is more of a need to have a better idea of where the business is at. But in either case, I think you have to be aware of the implications of the decisions that you're making. So you do have to be aware of the business. And I think as an engineer, again, that would be advice to kind of engineers starting out, become aware of what your businesses, you know, who are your key customers, what are the, you know, how was your product differentiated from other people's products, because that is important, it is important that you know, where the business is going. And I know when I was kind of mid-career, as I said, I did, I did a leadership course. But I went on and did an MBA as well. And that was very, very useful to me at the time that I did it. So I think that you know, whether it's an MBA or whether it's, you know, even in something in project management or management in general, I think that skill set that's kind of outside of engineering is very useful for you. But I would say to engineers, get your feet under the table, you know, I wouldn't be jumping into something like that when you're two years out of college. Wait until you actually know what way is that up and you know where your industry is before you go and get that skill set.

Dusty Rhodes 19:44

Do you think another way of possibly doing this and letting people know that you're interested and progressing but without being pushy if you want to put it that way is to ask questions as you say to reach out and to learn is it okay to ask people questions about the business.

Ann Ledwith 20:02

Absolutely. And I think most people will be happy to share with you. So, yeah, inquire and find out what's going on. I think that makes an awful lot of sense. Because, again, like I said earlier, it's context, I think you have to know where you're operating and where you're working, and what are the goals of the company? So what are the key aims of the company because you need to align yourself with that if you want to be moving up in a leadership or even in a management role in a company, you need to be aware of what their goals are.

Dusty Rhodes 20:30

My mind is just worrying with the amount of things that you're saying that I would have to learn about Android engineering is such a fast-paced industry and with so many different opportunities for learning, it can be a little bit overwhelming for some people, how should engineers approach their continued learning?

Ann Ledwith 20:47

Well, I mean, I would say you can't do everything. So I think sometimes you have to make choices. I can remember back, probably about 20 years ago, I put a lot of time into redesigning one of our programs. And we launched the program, and it was very successful, and I was very happy with it. And I could have decided to pursue that to stay on with that program to grow it to be the course director. But at the same time, there was an opportunity in working with continuous education, lifelong learning, and driving that. And I had to let go of something and decide to do something else to go with a lifelong learning piece because you can't do everything. And I think there are important kinds of inflection points in people's careers where they have to make decisions like that and decide, well, what's going to be taking me further apart? Am I really passionate about it? And I think when you've when you've made those decisions, then start looking at what kind of learning and what kind of upskilling you want, because it has to be relevant to you. But that's my opinion, that when you're moving forward in your career, and you've decided where you'd like your career to go, that's when you should be looking at what part of education what programs or courses can help me along the way with that.

Dusty Rhodes 21:54

So listen, tell me about you. Well, you're currently the director of UL at work, can you explain what kind of opportunities you are at work at present?

Ann Ledwith 22:02

UL as work is part of a program called the human capital and asset that was funded through the National Training Fund. So about four years ago, they open to competitive funds for universities to innovate and innovate in ways that were going to really support the development of skills and work closely with industry, looking at what kind of graduates do we need to produce. And what we did at Limerick is that we focus very much on professional education and postgraduate education. So you will at work has developed a range of programs, a lot of them are one-year part-time programs called professional diplomas, where people can upscale on areas, very diverse areas. So we've got programs in sustainability and communications and PR programs in strategic leadership in data analytics, in artificial intelligence. So there are there's a whole range of programs. But one of the things that we've done with that, which I think is a really great opportunity for students is that we've put in place a new masters called a Masters of Professional {ractice. And what the Masters is about is that you can pick any three of those professional diplomas that are going to suit your career, and you can put them together to get a master's. So you will do one of them in one year, you can do the second one, and then you can do the third one. And with your third one, you get your Masters. And it's proving really, really popular. And what it allows students to do is to really customize their learning. So we have, for example, we've had a very good program in aviation, leasing, and finance, and we've called a couple of good aviation programs, and students will do those. But they'll say, Well, actually, I need a bit of leadership with that as well. Or I need to find out about Lean, and how do I implement Lean in my company, so you'll get very diverse kind of mixes of diplomas and various of learning, but they make sense for a person's career. What we have is a structure that kind of scaffolds you through from microcredit to Masters, where you can pick a microcredit that's related to or that's part of one of these professional diplomas. Go ahead, do the professional diploma, once you know that, it's where you want to be, and then build three of these. And it goes back to my comment at the start about these kinds of pie shapes. The T-shaped professionals are now becoming pie-shaped professionals and maybe show professionals where you need a couple of deep dives and a few things, you need a couple of areas that you can say, well actually look, I can stand up and talk about that because I know that as well as having the transversal skills. And I think that's what our master's in professional practice does. It allows you to build, you know, up to three different areas that you know a lot about that you've advanced to kind of level nine to Masters level in a particular topic, but that you can bring them together kind of with some of these transversal skills,

Dusty Rhodes 24:50

the range of content of things that I can learn sounds amazing from the way you describe it and the fact that it can help my vision to move up in a career sounds amazing. I do want Want to be a leader that people are following me rather than being a manager with a hammer and playing Whack a Mole with employees all day. And the one thing that does worry me is the time elements. And it sounds great when you say it's a part-time when you're I've got a full-time job I've got, you know, three kids hanging out I've got a wife is always cranky, I made sure to mean, what kind of time commitment is there in here.

Ann Ledwith 25:23

We've been at this for a long time, and people can put in between 15 and 20 hours a week. And more than that isn't going to happen. So we can design any program we say and say there's 30 weeks studying that, it's not going to happen. As you say, for somebody who has children, a career, or a wife, sometimes older parents do all of these husband, Max, you'll be able to put in 15 hours a week, 15 to 20 hours a week. So you might put in an hour to kind of during the week after work, and then maybe one or two longer stints at the weekend. But you've got to get the balance right. And I think I suppose I'm comfortable talking about that, because I did my MBA, as I was managing things, I had my baby in the middle of my first child in the middle of my MBA, so I put a totally different color on the whole thing and trying to finish it off. It is doable, but you have to be focused on it. And I think one of the things that is quite nice about the model that we have is that you pit you take it one piece at a time, you know, so it's not saying you're committing to three years are you committing, you'll commit to one year and one year is actually two semesters and two semesters is to 15-week blocks. And you know, if you break it down like that, you can rationalize it and say, Okay, I will have a nice bit off at Christmas, I will have a short break at Easter, I've my summer off. So I think you have to keep that balance kind of between how you do everything

Dusty Rhodes 26:47

in the workplace, then how can managers and leaders that you're working with support you if you want to follow this journey of continued education,

Ann Ledwith 26:57

I think one of the key things is, you know, if you are getting on that journey of continuing education is to get the support from your manager because they need to know that you're doing this program. And they need to know that you might need a little bit of slack that you're not going to be working till eight o'clock, kind of three evenings a week, but that you need to finish up because we have more work to do. But I think part of that has to be a conversation with your manager about how this program is actually going to progress you and how it's going to help you. So it's not just that you're getting skills, but your company is getting skills, and the way an awful lot of our programs. And again, I know I'm talking about what we do at your will. But other universities have similar types of programs. But a lot of our programs are very linked to your business and linked to your workplace. So where you know, I take the lead program, it's a very good example, that as you're moving through Lean projects, your projects are requiring you to review your current working situation to look at how you can improve things. And in fact, on our lien program, the thesis that you do at the end has to make a particular contribution to your company. So you only get through with your thesis proposal, if you can show how it's going to save your company money or time or whatever it is, or improve things. And I mean, we've had some fantastic program projects there where people have saved hundreds of 1000s for the companies by being involved in a project like this. So I think the conversation very much has to be I want to do this program, it's going to help me it's going to help you this is how I'm going to bring this learning back into the workplace. And programs have to be designed like that.

Dusty Rhodes 28:29

That is almost how you start thinking like a leader because you're going home and you're saying to your partner, I want to do this extra work. Because after I will be able to do boom, which will bring benefit to us, then you're going into your employer and you're saying, I want to do this blah, blah, blah, and the benefits of the company will be bumped. And you're starting to be a leader then because you're sharing a vision for our people kind of go I want to be part of that. That's love the way you think.

Ann Ledwith 28:55

Yeah, no, it's very true. It's very true that you're looking at where this is taking me. But it's not just me. It's how it's improving the other things around me, very important.

Dusty Rhodes 29:05

If I'm considering taking on some more education in order to improve myself and to move forward. Where do I start? I mean, is there stuff that you're aware of with engineers, in Ireland? Is there stuff that I can find on your website with you? Well,

Ann Ledwith 29:21

yeah, I mean, there is stuff that you'd find on engineers, Ireland, and upskilling. But the government has actually done really good work over the last number of years and we were very supportive of people who want to go back to education. So our Springboard program is a fantastic place to start. And the springboard offers programs across the range, a whole pile of different areas. And they're pretty much you know, they're very well funded, but about 90% funded, and those are all open now. So, anybody who wants to go on to the Springboard web website, we see a whole range of programs. The other group that works really well with upscaling our skill nets and our skills are working across all the regions across all the different areas of technology. And they're also looking at what are the needs of the industry, what are the skills that they need. So those would be two very obvious places to go. But also on for any of the universities, I mean, now is the time where we're kind of coming to the end of our recruitment cycle for September. So depending on what you want to do, or where you want to go, if you go on to our URL website and look for postgraduate education, you will find a list of different programs that are available there. And you know, the same in any institution. 

Dusty Rhodes 30:32

You have affected me and I hope you have affected the person listening to the podcast at the moment in that I want to be a leader. I don't want to be a manager. I want to be a leader. And I find that everything that you've said has been very inspiring today. So thank you so much for sharing with us on the podcast today. Thank you. If you'd like to find out more about Ann and some of the topics that we did speak about today, you will find notes and link details in the show notes area of your player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advanced episodes of our Engineers Ireland AMPLIFIED podcast on our website engineersireland. ie. Our podcast today was produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes do click the Follow button on your podcast player right now to get access to all of our past and future shows automatically. Until next time, from myself, Dusty Rhodes, thank you for listening.

Engineering Is Fundamental To Enterprise

Irish engineers are having a fantastic impact in global enterprise but are we nimble and innovative enough to take on the internationals?

Today we find out how engineering is fundamental to the future of enterprise in Ireland and why innovation and sustainability will be vital to our success.

We are delighted to be joined by CEO of Enterprise Ireland, and Fellow of Engineers Ireland, Leo Clancy.

 Listen below or on your podcast player!

Things we spoke about

01:26 Leo’s career from engineering to enterprise 

04:17 What does Enterprise Ireland do?

05:25 Engineering is fundamental to enterprise

08:38 How Ireland stands out in a global market

11:47 What we can learn from international companies

14:28 Adopting an innovation mindset

18:09 How Enterprise Ireland can help start ups

22:58 Opportunities for Irish engineering companies

25:29 Sustainability as an opportunity and as a threat

33:41 Future forecasting and Impact 2030 for engineering

Guest details

Leo Clancy is the Chief Executive Officer of Enterprise Ireland, the State Agency that helps Irish companies to start, scale and grow globally. Leo graduated from Dublin Institute of Technology with a First-Class Honours degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and is a Fellow of Engineers Ireland.

Before being appointed as CEO of Enterprise Ireland, Leo was a member of the Executive Committee of IDA Ireland, the State agency for Foreign Direct Investment. There, he led the Technology sector, working extensively at up to C-level with the top global technology and services companies.

Leo spent most of his career in the telecommunications industry, working in senior management, technical and engineering roles. His most recent role was as Service Delivery Director at e|net. Prior to that, he was General Manager, Service Delivery at Ericsson Ireland.

Website: https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/about-us/our-people/executivecommitee/leo-clancy.html

Social Media: www.linkedin.com/in/leoclancy

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/ 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

Quotes

It was that discipline of learning about something and problem solving that I really appreciated about engineering, and I think gives you a great grounding. I've been a manager effectively now for 20 years. You never lose that engineering mindset in terms of how you approach problems, and I think it really stands to people. - Leo Clancy

Irish companies and people have a get it done mentality. We are flexible, we know how to roll with things and problem solving is at the core of how we think about things. Ireland has always had that little bit of a scrappy edge to us, and that shouldn't be confused with low quality because it's not. Irish people are good at analyzing the problem, working out how to change the process in order to get it done, as well as delivering quality. - Leo Clancy

I think we could certainly bring back more of that cultural respect for engineering. We need to value engineering more. - Leo CLancy

There's some brilliant innovation going on in Ireland. And I think it's not beyond the possibility for Irish companies in various domains who are already strong on services and delivering projects to start innovating solutions within their businesses. - Leo Clancy

We're going to see continued and vastly increasing investment in sustainability. That is certainly something that every company should be looking at, as an opportunity, but also as a threat. If companies don't have sustainability plans, and verifiable ones for their businesses, they will be out of business in three to five years. No one will buy from a company that doesn't have a good ESG plan, and that can't verify their own sustainability credentials. - Leo Clancy

It's an absolute testament to Irish business that 2022 was a record year on exports. Irish business performed very well during the pandemic, so I'd be very optimistic about where we're going in the future. I think notwithstanding what might happen in the global markets, I think we're going to continue to see growth in Irish business exports, and growth and jobs. - Leo Clancy

Transcription

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes 00:00

Right now on AMPLIFIED, the Engineers Journal podcast, we're about to learn just how important innovation is for success.

Leo Clancy 00:08

Irish engineers would go to sites, and we'd figure out how to get the job done. We wouldn't stand behind. Well, this has never been done before, it needs to go back to the product unit, and needs to be considered for another three months. Ireland has always had that little bit of a scrappy edge to us as well as well as delivering quality.

Dusty Rhodes 00:28

Hello there. My name is Dusty Rhodes and you're very welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal podcast. Irish engineers are having a fantastic impact across the globe. But are we nimble and innovative enough to take on the internationals? Could the lack of sustainability credentials put us out of business? And why is engineering so fundamental to Ireland's future? Our guest today is one of the country's most prestigious engineers who works tirelessly to promote Irish enterprise on the international stage and is about to give us some great insight. I'm delighted to be joined today by a fellow of Engineers Ireland and the current Chief Executive Officer of Enterprise Ireland. Leo Clancy, thanks for coming on.

Leo Clancy 01:16

Thanks, Dusty. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dusty Rhodes 01:18

So listen, you're an engineer at heart Leo, and a fellow of Engineers Ireland. Tell us a little bit about your career in engineering.

Leo Clancy 01:26

I came to engineering accidentally, actually, which is interesting, because the only reason I picked it was I wanted to be a Vet. But the Leaving Cert points were never going to get me there. So the next best choice was what my two cousins thought, it was electronic engineering, which I knew nothing about. Buzz went for us and came to love. It really enjoyed us. And it was that discipline of learning about something and problem-solving that I really appreciated about engineering and I think gives you a great grounding. Like I've been a manager effectively now for 20 years in one form or another bus. You never lose that engineering mindset in terms of how you approach problems. So I think a really stands to people.

Dusty Rhodes 02:06

Tell me how did all of this engineering work then lead you to work with Enterprise Ireland?

Leo Clancy 02:12

I was working with Ericsson Optics as an ace. And during the summer of 2000, and Asia, we probably had a family choice to make about where we were going to be. I ended up resigning from my 30-year career. With Ericsson. On the day, Lehman Brothers collapsed into designation, to join a loss-making telecom startup patinas. It turned into one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had, I joined as service delivery director and took on engineering. So effectively in the CTO role as Enos did that job for four and a half years, and it was an amazing project, we grew the business, and we made it profitable. And then the business was in the process of being sold. And I met no boss of mine who said that the Ida was looking for a head of ICT, being this about marketing the servos, helping attract the biggest ICT companies to Ireland's that's UN's a bit more interesting. So joined Ida and spent eight years there leading the tech sector. My clients were Amazon, Intel, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google. So that led me to an immensely interesting eight years of seeing that hyper-growth of the tech sector. And then it's always been my ambition to be CEO of a company, private or public. I would have said that we're for a person who's come from industry, there are two super interesting jobs in the public sector ecosystem, the CEO of Ida and the CEO of Enterprise Ireland. So this was the one that came up soonest.

Dusty Rhodes 03:41

And does Enterprise Ireland still have that kind of like problem-solving angle to your life, except on a much bigger national scale?

Leo Clancy 03:48

Every day of the week. We're an organization of over 800 people with a budget of around 400 million euros. We have 40 offices outside Ireland. So it's a big organization. But so involved in the tech ecosystem funding university research, and funding companies, my early stage was an equity investor in nearly 2000 companies, you know, just hugely interesting span 4000 clients across many sectors. So there's something to learn in every hour of every day.

Dusty Rhodes 04:17

I kind of want to chat with you about opportunities abroad for engineering companies and how you would kind of look nationally and internationally at things that engineers are always considering like sustainability and innovation in the future. But first, just to kind of give us a bit of because we all hear about the ITA we all hear about enterprise Ireland but you know we don't pay as much attention to it as maybe you would like us to and apologize here now for that. Can you explain to us what is the IDA and what specifically really is Enterprise Ireland?

Leo Clancy 04:47

The IDA is a sales and marketing machine at its heart, it's focused on bringing foreign direct investment to Ireland's enterprise. Ireland is much more complex, we are focused on Irish companies entirely, and Ida is focused entirely on non-Irish companies. So our portfolio ranges from the very earliest founder who's thinking about starting a business and might want to do an entrepreneurship training course, all the way up to companies like Kerry Group and Icon, clinical trials companies, and others who are very large global leaders in their fields. And every company in between. So we've got over 4000 clients.

Dusty Rhodes 05:25

One of the things that I have seen them, you know, we're looking at various videos and and and articles and reopen and investigating you, Lele essentially, one of the things that you said was that engineering is fundamental to the future of Irish enterprise. What do you mean by that? Why is engineering so key to Irish enterprise?

Leo Clancy 05:43

Engineering is a fundamental building block of any modern economy. You know, and I think this will be increasingly true. So engineers build large parts of our world and engineering has been a huge string for Ireland in terms of how we succeed. So if I look at the industries that are growing fastest in my world, its construction actually is one of our single biggest growing export sectors, companies that have engineered the semiconductor fabs, the farmer plants, and the data centers in Ireland, are now taking what they've learned in Ireland, and they're going global, and all around the world, a huge, huge growth rate in that area. Sustainability Solutions was our fastest-growing job sector last year. And again, depends on good engineers who can include can engineer software solutions, carbon monitoring solutions, put them into insights, and life sciences, reading faster, etc. We have hundreds of innovation, of young life sciences companies that are growing very fast now, I think the scientific community probably wouldn't thank me for not including them, also, in addition to engineers, but I think science and engineering capability is fundamental to the creation of new and defensible IP. If you want to succeed in a very competitive global market, you need products that are unique, defensible in global markets, and give you a competitive edge. And I think Roiland does knowledge economy, we need to re-emphasize the importance that engineering and science at the core of our industrial solutions.

Dusty Rhodes 07:14

You say one of the quickest growing areas of the moment is construction and construction internationally. How does construction work on an international basis,

Leo Clancy 07:24

it worked through a number of strands, the primary ones are people making products, whether it's precast, concrete, or electrical monitoring systems, and lots of products like that, you know, partition walls, that are exporters and go into construction products, say, you know, and they might have got their start with an Amazon in Ireland, or with Intel or with or with Pfizer. And once those, once they've proven them, once companies have proven themselves selling products into those companies, the world is their oyster in terms of global supply chains. The other really fast-growing one is people. So the people who built those projects in Ireland, we had a great announcement from h&m B A a few weeks ago, where they were adding 700 jobs around the world, including 400, and Ireland to serve global electrical and data center projects and their mechanical and electrical contractor their core competencies, the people that they provide project manage and install electrical solutions in very large plants. So are people traveling out on a contract basis to be part of the building project? And people that they will hire locally if there's a pipeline to a business that can keep going locally? And complementing those two soaks? Product and people exports are the two elements.

Dusty Rhodes 08:38

And what is it about, like engineering here in Ireland that makes it so appealing abroad?

Leo Clancy 08:44

I guess it's a done mentality. Yeah, if I saw rose, Irish, Irish companies and people are flexible, we know how to roll with things. Problem-solving is at the core of how we think about things. And when I worked at Ericsson, this was also true, Irish engineers would go to sites, and we'd figure out how to get the job done, we wouldn't stand behind. Well, this has never been done before it needs to go back to the product unit needs to be considered for another three months, Ireland has always had that little bit of a scrappy orange to us. And that shouldn't be confused with low quality because it's not Irish people are good at analyzing the problem, working out what needs to be done working out how to change the process in order to get it done, as well as, as well as delivering quality. So I think we can do the two of those together. There are a lot of countries that are good at getting things done the scrappy way and leave you with a mess. And you know, it's not uniformly culture than any country but that that can be true in certain areas. There are other places where the culture is that you follow a process regardless of the difficulty it causes. Ireland threads in between those two were able to change the process and maintain the quality.

Dusty Rhodes 09:55

There's a thing that we have in Ireland that whenever we travel abroad, we automatically assumed People love us. You travel a lot and it's a lot to do with business and enterprise and everything. That surely is not the reality what are the real thoughts of foreigners when they look back at Ireland?

Leo Clancy 10:12

I think they don't love us they really love us just a word.

Leo Clancy 10:19

It's funny, you know, it is a privileged position to be in, but it's generally true. You know, I have traveled all over the world, myself and Ireland, Ireland's an interesting country. First of all, we have a big Global Diaspora. So we've been distributed around the world, we've had people go out and work in every part of the world, and we've never had a colonial history or passage that would color the perception of us in areas. So we are generally welcome where we are, but then we're also good at getting on with people, you know, Irish people are good at understanding cultures, understanding difference, because we've had that Jasper, we've all known people who've traveled too far corners the world and have to have had to make themselves acceptors. And that's permeated its way back into us. We were a nation of migrants. And we've had to be conscious of other cultures, we've had to, we've depended on the kindness of others, to help us succeed as individuals and to help the nation succeed because we had a population that couldn't have been sustained with we were talking this week about the JFK 60 celebrations. The population of Ireland in the 60s was 2.5 million; the population on the island in 1840, was 8 million I believe. So the amount of people who left Ireland or died from the inability because of the inability to leave the country, I think there is a race memory of this and Irish people that makes us more culturally sensitive.

Dusty Rhodes 11:47

I think you're right, because it's something about, you know, us Irish, we have a serious thing for owning our own home. And I always thought that that goes back to the famine when nobody owns their own home, Jeremy is like, you know, it's not a little protection thing that we have. But that's us Irish. And speaking of your international experience, and working with other countries abroad, have you seen stuff in their cultures that you think we should take on board here in Ireland, I would help us with our engineering.

Leo Clancy 12:16

Interesting. I think we're, we're good when we go to places that are just simulating things that are good. They go to somewhere like Israel, or Netherlands to a lesser degree, you know, the level of directness, that that was in those cultures, is something we could probably benefit from at times, you know, I think sometimes Irish people can be a little bit circumspect. And it is that balance of our niceness and, and getting the job done. But the Irish people are more direct than average. But there are little things like that, that we could probably, we shouldn't probably lose what makes us strong, but we could, we could probably still learn some of that. If you look at a society like Germany, you know, where the focus on and value on engineering is so strong and so pervasive. I think we certainly bring back more of that cultural respect for engineering, actually, and not just saying that because among engineers, our podcast today, I actually think it's true that we need to value engineering more, we could, we could certainly learn more about innovation in the way that the United States does it. You know, we looked at commercial numbers this week in various economic reports and the level of innovation in the EU by companies, I think the stats are over 50% of US companies are investing in innovation in some form or other, but only early 30s of European companies are investing in innovation. And if we go back to the construction example that I mentioned earlier, we have companies who are on top of their game in delivering construction projects, I'd like to see more of those companies actually innovating and creating their own products and services that are not the product of the work of the people on a given project. What are new intellectual property-based things that they understand the market will need, in addition to the people effort that we bring, and we probably don't see enough of that, in our industry in various parts of our industry. Some areas were phenomenal. We have amazing startups and scale-up companies that have defensible IP. But I think if more of our services-oriented companies and people who deliver projects for people could start innovating their own products, that would be really interesting. And I think that's very much a US culture.

Dusty Rhodes 14:28

In many ways you're talking about innovation. Have you any kind of particular example in the back of your mind that you're thinking of about somebody abroad that impressed you with innovation?

Leo Clancy 14:38

I'm just trying to think of companies that are analogous to the example he gave no way I'd nearly look locally to some of the innovation being done from the ground up by startups. So if you think of an example, James and extortionate will probably kill me. I keep mentioning exoskeleton if you've come across them, but they're a company in Carlingford the typical way You do Marine Surveying, as you put a big ship in the water with a crew of 10 plus people and it's diesel-powered and you do the marine surveys and cost a fortune to run, and you do it on customer demand. James and his team at x ocean have developed remote control ship that's about the size of an SUV a little bit bigger. Those largely electrically powered such as diesel engines as well, adult surveys controlled by an operator from potentially their kitchen table in Carlingford, or anywhere else in the world, that these chips can be sent and deployed to do marine surveys around the world. So cost differential is huge. The environmental impact is much lower. You know, those are the kinds of solutions that are super interesting for me. I mean, the other big one Combi lifts Mark McVicker and his team and Monahan, which you probably are aware of, they built an incredible facility for with new innovative lifts, you know, there are 14 products, there's some brilliant innovation going on in Ireland. And I think it's not beyond the possibility for Irish companies in various domains, who are already strong on services and delivering projects just start innovating solutions like that within their businesses.

Dusty Rhodes 16:18

So it's kind of from what I hear what you're saying is kind of services are great, but ideas are better. If your current got to take that then because innovation is brilliant from an engineer, thinking of solving solutions and stuff like that, right? How do you get into that kind of innovation area? Because normally, as an engineer, you're told there's a problem with this, we need to fix it. And you've got to but with innovation, it's kind of you're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. So what's in your head? Do you see the thought process that people innovate with?

Leo Clancy 16:51

Yeah, I wouldn't say wouldn't read this. It's not. Most of the best innovation is problems that you understand deeply, that do exist. So if you're, if you're a construction company, and you're going to sites every day, and you see those things are done a certain way. And one of the most traditional industries is construction, for instance. So you're going to the site every day, and you see that there's a niche, you want to scratch, actually working out how to start scratching, that itch is probably the hardest part, you know, how do I? How do I put someone on this? So instead of replicating this problem every time and I'm charging my clients, could I have a better business model, where I'm actually eliminating the inefficiency and charging for this product that eliminates that inefficiency. That's an interesting one, that that's hard to do in any business. That's the Kodak moment, you know, Kodak had the digital famously had the digital camera patents an idea in the 80s. But they couldn't bring themselves to not depend on film. And I think we all as engineers need to be thinking about that Kodak moment for all of our businesses. Where do I see something that's a good business today, that I may need to disrupt myself in initially, in order to make myself stronger for the future.

Dusty Rhodes 18:09

So let me follow that then a little bit, if you are looking at your business, or you see something that is happening over and over again, you come up with a novel and interesting and a new way of tackling that problem and solving that problem. That's what we call innovation. We kind of think, how am I going to turn this from an idea in my brain into reality? Because quite often, it could be something quite big that you need help with. Is it at this stage that you approach Enterprise Ireland, or should you do something else first before we start knocking on your door?

Leo Clancy 18:41

As early as you like, and as early as possible, I would say so if you look as if you look at and I have some examples, my head at all use them because I'm not sure at what stage they're at. We have consultancy companies that have done a number of things they've either come to us for. So one really simple thing we can do. If you have an idea, and you don't have an engineer, if you don't have let's say you're a construction company and you don't have a software person, you can go to a university, we can give you a 5000 Euro voucher to spend with the university to get a prototype built. And that's no cost to you, you own the IEP, you just get the vote for most you get the work done, you guys it's delivered for you. You can go higher than that, once you've done that, you can build that up into an innovation partnership where you can get up to 660 5% of the customer, a much larger project done. And this is before you have to commit any full-time permanent people beyond people who can interact with the university on the idea. If you think you can have people on staff who can do it we can help you with an initial feasibility grant to actually explore that idea in detail and they are very substantial. So you can put a few people on this for a year or two. So that's the scale of where we can help early some companies are juicy where they have a services business. They don't want to distract focus from the core, which is right in many cases, they spin out a company. So they'll create a new entity which we can also get behind As a potential co-founder with equity or other ways, so they're de-risking from the core, but they're also given a better headspace some potential to the people who are in that company, and potentially giving some benefit to the people who go with that idea that they might have returned out of that new business in return for their efforts, folks, there's any amount of ways, but just you, thank you for the question. Because you use that as effectively in your question, come to us, as soon as you have an idea, we really want to see innovation probes, and explored by companies as early as possible.

Dusty Rhodes 20:33

One of the things you think of as a company, because I mean, here we are, we're the home with the international firm, and we're seeing headlines lately, like, you know, those three internationals paid. I can't wait, what was the day that 1/3 of all corporation tax three companies, it's, it's insane. So they're huge. But then you're kind of an engineer listening to this, you kind of think, well, actually, I'm just part of a small little engineering company, maybe we're evolved in technology or something like that. Do you think that small emerging tech companies that Ireland are possibly in better shape than the big multinationals are in a better position to be able to innovate?

Leo Clancy 21:10

I don't think it's as binary as that, actually, I think. But, yes, small companies can pivot their model a lot quicker. You know, that's, that's something that's certainly true. We see it everywhere that by the time you work your way up through the innovation process, and large company, at startup can have delivered a product to the market, you know, and that's just a fact of life, I worked on a very large company, I worked at a very small company, I went from 100,000 person company to a 30 person, company. And to those are nice, and the difference is brilliant. And I think small companies often don't realize that superpower that they have, I think large companies can eventually do whatever they want. We talked about this recently, with Chuck GPT, and GPT. For large language models, large companies own a huge amount of computing power, plus, they will take longer to come to market with solutions, you know, small companies, and we've seen this with open AI can actually move faster, where they will get stuck potentially as on the resource needed to scale up an idea but depends on the domain you're in. If it's large, long language models in AI much harder to scale those up because there's a global scarcity of Nvidia chips at the moment. So you're going to hit a barrier, not to mention the money required. But in most other domains, small companies can move fast, I think it can be a much bigger proportional bet, though. So just understanding what you're getting yourself into planning for is making sure that the financial model behind what you're setting out to do is clear, those are important. And again, that's where we can help. So we have people who can help flesh out. An idea from a technical feasibility point of view can also help you with a financial model, the cash flow analysis, and things like that. So that's where we're keen to help more and more companies.

Dusty Rhodes 22:58

I'm not thinking about all these and you know, kind of the agility of being a smaller company and being able to experiment with ideas. And then there's this port from Enterprise Ireland. And you're thinking about not just doing it in this small little rock on the side of the Atlantic, that there's a market of billions and billions out there. What kind of opportunities, from your point of view are there in the world for Irish engineering companies?

Leo Clancy 23:20

Huge opportunity, where I'm getting asked all the time these days, do global conditions mean that we should be getting ready for attraction in exports? And should we be worried about the prospects for Irish companies and possibly globalization going to do for us? You know, I think I think those questions are useful to continue asking, but they're not relevant to where we're at at the moment. We have a huge market in front of us for Irish companies. And the optimism is huge. We survey our companies every year on their sentiment about the future of the markets. Companies are telling us in the high 80s and early 90s have optimism about growing their international markets this year. That's a survey we did earlier this year. And it's borne out to be true. If you look at the large globalization concerns that are out there and say they are they're relatively narrow, actually, worse, aimless. You know, things like semiconductor chip battles between large countries and other things around minerals generally don't affect Irish companies in a systemic way. There are companies that will be affected by Chip shortages and by material shortages and other things. But we're not systemically dependent on our existence exposed to some of the key geopolitical things that are going on. And I think we're in enough markets actually, that we should be resilient to whatever might come in terms of financial shocks. So I'm really optimistic about the future. There's any amount of business out there to be done. We said saw the signs in 2022, the US grew to $5 billion of exports from Irish companies for the first time. Eurozone exports grew by 28% Okay, Last year, construction actually was the biggest country research that grew by 50% in the eurozone. And that is companies out building data centers where we know that there's a market fueled by including Chuck GPT and other applications that will continue for another 10 years as a healthy market. There are markets in biopharma for vaccines. You know, I'm the markets were in our resilience to what may call them and financial markets.

Dusty Rhodes 25:29

You've mentioned chat GPT a few times. And AI, of course, is on everybody's mind. And where should Irish engineers be thinking, for the future, with everything changing? So, so fast?

Leo Clancy 25:42

It depends on your domain, I would say, digital is, is huge. And I think engineers need to be thinking about digital models for the delivery of their products. Even in highly traditional industries, like construction soaks natively, digital businesses going to grow substantially as well. So like the AI models and areas like that, so digital is huge. And even if you think digital isn't relevant to you, you should be thinking again, because digital can be delivered easily from Ireland to anywhere in the world which is unlike a physical product. So even if you're in the physical product business, you could add about valuable revenue stream through digital. Digital is also incrementally the cost of a new digital product once you built one zero, popes, you just punch another piece of software out it doesn't cost you anything to do. So to Highmark the margin model. Sustainability is the other one. So it's the other big secular trend at the moment. But it's right, I mean, there is going to be a revolution. Regardless of what happens with financial markets, we're going to see continued and vastly increasing investment in sustainability. So that is certainly something that every company should be looking at, as an opportunity, but also as a Thresh. If companies don't have sustainability plans, and verifiable ones for their businesses, they will be out of business in three to five years' time. No one will buy from a company that doesn't have a good ESG plan. And they can't verify their own sustainability credentials, saying it's only a matter of time.

Dusty Rhodes 27:11

When you say verifying your sustainability credentials, what kind of is this literally a certificate on the wall? Or what do you mean by that,

Leo Clancy 27:20

that won't be good enough. So you can't just achieve a certificate and call it done, you've got to be able to, for instance, be in control of your scope, one, two, and three emission levels, you've got to understand your supply chain in terms of where the products came from, what environmental impact they had both on carbon and on even things like labor conditions, sources, the finance that you use to build your business and all the other aspects on environmental social governance, you've got to be able to prove through your supply chain, that you are not negatively impacting your customers. So the large customers of all of our Irish companies will demand that they can show that they're not negatively affecting their own environmental stance, and they will go deep, if they haven't gone deep so far, they will go deep in order terms into your ESG credentials and will want to see evidence that you can start over. So searching on the wall is a nice start, but it's not going to get you there. Unfortunately, we can help with that we have for instance, a climate and sustainability voucher which we can give companies, two days of consulting that gets fully covered, which helps have a first look at how you stand at this. So 1800 euros, just helps you take a good look at yourself. We then have various stages of green transformation programs that we can bring to bear for companies. So you can get green Start Green plus green transform, which helps you actually bring in consultants into your business and work with you through this entire chain, train your people. So that's an offer we have it's undersubscribed, Dusty, at the moment, people aren't coming to us for this money, and it's either it's a high level of support 100% cover to the wall, vote your level 80% At the next level 50% After that, so and we're not seeing the demand. 

Dusty Rhodes 29:06

First, let me ask you because everybody's telling you about sustainability. But I don't think an awful lot of people really understand it. And you're saying that it's under subscribed, why is it under-subscribed?

Leo Clancy 29:15

I think people are people are very busy. And I know that sounds like a terrible excuse. But we've had braces. We've had COVID-19 We've had the Ukraine crisis, we have more breaks of coming with globalization and supply chain shortages and shocks, inflation and pricing, and all those things. So companies like mine have huge empathy and sympathy for SMEs in the middle of all that because most do not have a big superstructure of admin people who can take on loads of extra stuff, they're struggling to survive. So I think there's a real risk that this has been to deprioritize because the time as well as understanding and I think that's where we can help though we can help with some of that light touch consultancy that can come in and help with some of the explanations, but that's why it was so forceful, really in my description of what will happen to people in their markets, if we don't do this, right, because this is an existential threat, you know, the day will come when you receive a tender that you won't be able to respond to that might be fundamental to the future of your business, and the day is coming.

Dusty Rhodes 30:20

It's like having a tax clear insert, if you can't rustle one up for 24 hours, you're dead, they're gonna go away. So you need to have something along the same way with sustainability. So I get what you're saying in that it's a threat. If you don't look after this, well, then that's gonna cause you big problems in the next 235 years. If you do look after it, it's opening up a huge amount of opportunities, but what is the actual impact? When we look at sustainability from an engineering point of view or within an engineering? Business? What impact is that actually having on real-world sustainability?

Leo Clancy 30:58

Yep. So depends. Like generally, for businesses, if you have a sustainability plan that will make you better insurance, how you do your work, nevermind meeting your customer's expectations, it's generally a good thing to do that you would look at the emissions from your business that, you know, generally leads you to efficiency, actually, you know, so if you have this good sustainability plan, it should improve and enhance your business, it shouldn't be a cost, you know, look at all the people who scramble to put solar panels in in the last year, when there were more expensive to procure and to deploy, because the business case became immediately obvious when electricity prices went through the roof. That's, that's what if they had done it sooner, it would have cost them less to do and they would have had an immediate buffer against those electricity bills. It's hard to make the capital argument for them, though, unless thing unless things get very expensive. But I think taking those decisions earlier will help offer you because essentially, sustainability is about reducing your consumption and improving circularity. Those are all things that actually reduce costs as well. Ultimately, in the long term. Now, the InVEST ability of them is a challenge. And government is working on a number of measures around ensuring that there's more loan and scram capital available for businesses to invest in sustainability. So that's good. The other thing though, is, in that marketplace, your customers will want to buy from companies that have high sustainability credentials, and that will increasingly be the case you will do better in your markets as well as being more efficient. And the way to do it, and this is where engineering is crucial. Sustainability depends, particularly for a product company, you know, the design cycle is so important when you when you're an engineer, you sit down with a blank sheet, we don't use drawing boards much anymore. But you know, it's the turn it's drawing board to design a product, rather than just sketching out the most optimal engineering design with, whatever the most efficient products are, you now need to be asking yourself, what efficient way the sustainability credentials of those components are. So you might put a component into your design, that is the most efficient. But if it's made using questionable materials, or questionable labor practices, or if it doesn't have a future sustainability plan itself, using that component is going to compromise you with your customers. In the end, it's also going to compromise your potential in terms of costs, it's not sustainable. So these are really good questions to ask generically, even if, even if they're hard once you get your head or under a yawn. And engineers are vital to this, the design process and ensuring the childhood that you have this thought or so in advance is probably fundamental.

Dusty Rhodes 33:41

I think that's kind of going back to a lot of what you have been saying is that you know, you take a small idea, and a smaller dn or a small chain somewhere like that can grow. And it can grow your business here in Ireland, and it can grow internationally and as good. Can I ask you just kind of about the future because the engineer is a very curious kind of people like to look at the big picture. And you had said that 2022 was it was a record year for Enterprise Ireland, do you think we're going to be able to keep up that momentum over the next three, five years?

Leo Clancy 34:14

What's the cause? I hate making predictions, especially about the future. Yeah, so I suppose just one clarification, I always rushed to clarify, this 2022 was a record year for our clients. We don't have record years our clients do. And you know, we're here to support and serve. So. So I think it's an absolute testament to Irish business this, that we've had that record year and we had a record during 21 as well and exports. So Irish businesses performed so well during the pandemic. I'd be very optimistic about where we're going in the future. I think notwithstanding what may happen in the global markets, I think we're going to continue to see growth in Irish business exports, and growth and jobs.

Dusty Rhodes 34:57

Another big thing that's being talked about at the moment is the impact To 2030. It's the government's Research and Innovation Strategy, how's that being implemented?

Leo Clancy 35:05

I'm not very close to us in terms of the day-by-day implementation, but the ambition is very strong. And we're working very closely with our colleagues and Science Foundation Ireland, in the higher education authority in the universities, where we are a research funder as well, NASA, lots of people know this. Enterprise Ireland has a research and innovation team that is 70 People and has a very large budget, and that we deployed into more industry near pipe research applications than Science Foundation, Ireland. So we are part of that an intrinsic part of agenda respectable out of the things we do so going well, I think there's lots of things that we can continue to do better. But that's true in every research ecosystem in the world. I met colleagues from South Africa yesterday, and we compared notes about the things we like to boast about how we're doing and the things we don't like about how we're doing was, I think Ireland has a wonderful research ecosystem. And I think it's something we can build on. For me the priority is getting more industry more engaged, more industry players more engaged with academic institutions. That's, that's the core, I think we need to go to

Dusty Rhodes 36:14

Al, how would you see that then applying to engineering?

Leo Clancy 36:18

Engineering, many, a huge number of the projects that are done in the research ecosystem are done on behalf of engineering companies on our edge projects themselves. So it's, it's intrinsic to engineering. I think bringing out more university-based IP into how companies do their business is going to be a large part of that. But I think it companies guesses so actually, I was speaking to an engineer yesterday morning, he was in the biotech industry, actually telecommunications, but he was he's an IP leader in a telecoms company. And he had a wonderful experience of having done his PhD, which was partly funded by Enterprise Ireland funding way back in the day, in the early noughties, and was able to take some of that IP and create a spin-out company and, and bring that into an industrial environment and create global products. And that's the path you know, we have wonderful people and intellectual property in our universities, where we need to find increasing ways to unlock that and to follow that journey and to get that IP out into the wild and create value and profit for Irish companies.

Dusty Rhodes 37:23

Finally, just from your own perspective, and kind of looking towards 2030, as, as I just mentioned a good number. It's seven years away, seven years is a good number, isn't it? What vision do you have for this little country?

Leo Clancy 37:40

Ireland Inc, in 2031, of all government has said a white paper for enterprise. And if people haven't read us, I'd encourage them to do so it was published last December. It's government's vision for 2030. Actually, in terms of, in many respects. So we've two or three key things, I'd say. First, I think we are aiming that we will have 50% more large Irish companies by that point than we had last year. So and that's, that's ambition, too many Irish companies fail to a certain point and then are sold to global players are, you know, otherwise, leave our shores, we want to keep more of those companies Irish for longer and grow them to a global scale, they believe that's achievable. And seven years of 50% growth from we counted 104 last year to over 150 is a big jump. But I think the momentum is there if we can get behind such as Enterprise Ireland. The other big target that we have for 2030 is a 35% reduction in carbon emissions in respect to Irish enterprise on data is going to be hugely challenging 35% reduction in the context of a growing economy in particular, it's 35%, from the baseline that we would add early this decade, back down NASA have any growth that we see. So that's a serious ambition. But we have to achieve those as part of the government's plan. So we'll be pushing very hard on that as well, folks, I think more scalars companies and significantly reduced carbon emissions from ocean enterprise are probably the two that are top of mind there's adding a bunch of smaller ones,

Dusty Rhodes 39:16

Leo Clancy, It's a huge pleasure, honor, and brilliant to be able to see your point of view on the world, especially in relation to engineering and the amount of ideas and information and ways of looking at things that you've just given to us in is one podcast is absolutely phenomenal. I can't thank you enough for joining us today.

39:37

Thanks, Dusty. And thanks to the team at Engineers Ireland it's a privilege to be here. Really appreciate the partnership and congratulate you all on the work you're doing.

Dusty Rhodes 39:46

If you'd like to find out more about Leo and some of the topics that we spoke about today, you'll find notes and link details in the show notes area on your podcast player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advanced episodes of our Engineers Ireland AMPLIFIED podcast on our website at engineersireland.ie. Our podcast today was produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes do click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all of our past and the future shows automatically. Until then, from myself, Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening.

AMPLIFIED: Aidan O'Connell, Managing Director at AOCA Engineering Consultants Ltd

Few of us are presented with a problem so big it needs to be dealt with on a national scale.

When Aidan O’Connell discovered pyrite, he tackled it head-on, literally writing the book on how to deal with it. Today, he is an acknowledged expert in the area worldwide.

A hands-on pragmatic civil engineer, Aidan’s colourful career has spanned from his early days in the UK, to running a successful small firm in Portlaoise for almost thirty years. In this packed half hour, he pulls no punches on pyrites’ early days in Ireland and the processes he helped develop to tackle it. He also shares invaluable information on the challenges of engineering, moving up the ladder and what he sees in the immediate future.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Topics we discussed include:

03:27 The most insightful advice he ever received
06:09 The biggest challenge of his career
07:47 How he set industry protocols and standards
09:07 The problem with Pyrite
15:25 How he started his own firm
20:11 Competing with local councils
26:50 The one thing you must have to move up the ladder
27:50 Process of being named a Fellow of Engineers Ireland

Guest details

Aidan is a Chartered Civil Engineer with additional qualifications in Geotechnical Engineering and Project Management. After starting his career in the UK, he returned to Ireland to establish his own firm AOCA in 1996, expanding to Dublin in 2014. Aidan is regularly called on as a civil / structural expert with particular expertise on Pyritic Heave. He also holds the honour of being a Fellow of Engineers Ireland.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-o-connell-91128b1b/
https://www.aoca.ie

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer.
https://www.engineersireland.ie/

Quotes

You're starting out as a civil or structural engineer but what you will be in ten or twenty years will not be what you started out as. I found that to be absolutely true.

You're not going to move up the ladder unless you go for chartered status. That's an absolute minimum that you need to be able to bring to the table. That gives you the credibility to be able to sign reports and sign documents that you are qualified, that you're recognized, to be able to do that.

I don't know where engineering in Ireland in the ten, five or even two years is going. The reason is that it's moving so fast and it’s direction can be confusing. It's all about speed, speed, speed, speed.

Transcription

For your convenience, here is a 90% accurate AI transcription of the episode.

Dusty Rhodes  0:01 

Right now on Amplified the Engineers Journal podcast we're about to meet the Managing Director of AOCA Aidan O’Connell.

Aidan O'Connell  0:08 

Being an engineer is a fantastic career. Every single day is a new day and every single day is a learning day. If you are good at what you do, your clients will come. The single biggest problem I've ever had to fix is the pyrite issue that started out back in say 2006 - 2008 and then really came to the forefront in the early 2010 to 2012 period. This was something I went ‘wow, I don't understand this’.

Dusty Rhodes  1:00 

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes and you're welcome to Amplified the Engineers Journal Podcast. Today, we're chatting with a man who will be sharing a little bit about how to grow an engineering business or even maybe how to take over the running of an engineering business. He also has a fascinating story to tell behind one of the big construction stories of the last 20 years with the pyrite problem. He is a chartered civil engineer who returned from the UK to establish his own firm in Portlaoise in 1996, then expanded to Dublin in 2014, before being named a fellow of Engineers Ireland. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome the owner and Managing Director of a AOCA Aidan O'Connell. How are you?

Aidan O'Connell  1:39 

Good morning to see all good here in Port leash.

Dusty Rhodes  1:43 

Excellent. Listen, let me get your engineering credentials. First, what inspired you when you were a child to get into this silly business of ours?

Aidan O'Connell  1:52 

Strangely, I had no intention of being an engineer. I was that no, no medicine rules as far as I was concerned, right. And ultimately, I did my leaving cert like everybody else. And back then the points weren't as onerous as they are now in that back then we were I think it was 20 points to medicine. Yeah. Which was obviously high in terms of, they just gave you a lot less, you don't get the huge numbers of points for an A or a B. So ultimately, I miss out medicine by a single point. And engineering was down as my second choice. So I decided to faith had decided that that's I wasn't gonna do medicine. And in fairness, my wife had said to me many times that she's a nurse can't help anybody who ever saw you as a doctor. Because if you're going to be rebuilding them, or cutting the legs off and back together, again, maybe $4. And in that, none of that. Hold the hand. Nice, gentle engineer, or sorry, Doctor shoulder say, so I ended up doing engineering. And I have to be absolutely honest with you. I've loved every minute of us. There isn't a single second, I would say my entire career that I have doubters. Verba down the right route. I have traveled and I've met amazing people. I've spoken Australia, in in the doctrines and the UK talking to lads on site because they only spoke Australia because it was the pub, what you did over there if you wanted a bit of privacy on site, I had the time Yeah, half the time, you know, and I've gone to New York, and I've spoken I swear to god over there. Look, it's been having a small bit of the girl get is very helpful as well that way.

Dusty Rhodes  3:27 

When did you sit back and just say to yourself, I've achieved the dream, I am now an engineer.

Aidan O'Connell  3:32 

I've never said that. I've always said that every single day is a new day, and every single day is a learning day. So if you don't learn something new every single day, you're kind of wasting your life. I would say being an engineer is a fantastic career. One of the most insightful lectures or talks I've ever heard was one the week I was not a final year in college. And it was fantastic that they actually brought in somebody like that. And he was an engineer himself, who basically said, Look, lads, you're starting out as a civil or structural engineer. That's what you're starting is, what are you going to be in five years and 10 years and 20 years or 30 years time, you will not be what you start to doubt us. And that is absolutely true. I started out with the homes over in the UK as a junior site engineer. Fairly quickly over there I progress have been site manager still being an engineer, which was extremely helpful. And then once I met my wife, Mary, and then we moved back here to Ireland in 1991. I then became a road design engineer working on that design of the Portuguese motorway. And I can absolutely tell you, I had zero design experience of most ways. When I came back to Ireland. I had very little experience of pressing buttons on computers and get them to actually work on design the things but you learn very quickly because engineers are incredibly adaptable

Dusty Rhodes  4:56 

in those kinds of I don't want to call it Verity. years but kind of the days when you were hands on engineering on a day to day basis what was what is the biggest challenge you faced on a job?

Aidan O'Connell  5:07 

I don't think there's a single engineer who's not hands on job their entire life throughout their entire career.

Dusty Rhodes  5:14 

Even though you're managing director now you're you're still hands on.

Aidan O'Connell  5:17 

Absolutely. I was on a site yesterday in London only and there was looking at intumescent material and on structural steel and looking at structural failures has occurred. And I will be doing that I hope to the day I day are starting to the day I retire, I don't think I will ever actively retire, I will still say I'd be keep my hand in because you need to keep your brain moving. And most efficacy engineering does do that for you. So there is never going to be a time when regardless how how high you go, if you lose touch with what you are, which is an engineer, then you're only becoming a manager. And really, that's not what I want to be grand well that widens the fields then the biggest problem you had to fix Bihar, the single biggest problem I've ever had to fix. Good god that is a big one. So the single biggest thing in my career that I've had to try and understand and help people with it's most definitely been the pyrite issue that starts out bikin say 2006 1000 7000 A's and then really came to the forefront in the early 2010 11 and 12 period was the first case I ever saw will be back in say 2006 And it wasn't very unusual thing. It was actually in breakcore case all her blockwork should I say and I was home county Claire. And it this was something I went wow, I don't understand this. But ultimately, I sponsored and engaged actively with Galway University NUI Galway and Dr. Brian McCabe down there was an incredibly forward thinking gentleman. We're in the civil engineering department and they worked with some of the students there's both his masters out and as postgraduate, final year projects. And we did a monstrous amount of research over a table five years where we actually built rigs who build test slabs we we design systems, so we can actually monitor how this whole pyrite problem came about. And then ultimately, we got involved in writing the original protocols. Now we all call them standards originally, they were called protocols for how you go about testing and analyzing and then that develops and writing the ISO 398 standard. Within a CI there was myself and another colleague of mine in ARCA. Colin Scott, we did that in conjunction with an entire committee in NSCI.

Dusty Rhodes  7:47 

Give me a little bit more detail about how you set those protocols and, and standards, especially when you're working with a number of other people.

Aidan O'Connell  7:54 

Yeah, I was very lucky. I had the help of James Lambert, who God rests on me. He was the managing director of investigation iron clearances. And he was one of the world's greatest gentleman in terms of helping anybody. So he gave me all of his advice. And we looked at what testing procedures or protocols are actually available for sampling of, of stone and sampling of, of the mineralogy of stone itself. And then they come across Dr. John Crips, who was in Sheffield University and was a very well written engineer or geologist in relation to this field. And then there are other people as well, a Paul Quigley of agsl, who came along and gave me their advice. So ultimately, it was by talking to these people and saying, Okay, we suspect that this is a chemical reaction process that is that we need to be able to detect the various stages others and be able to physically see us, but not only physically see it that we can actually test it from the analytic process and have a printout that we can take. There you are, there's the answer. Black and white, black and white.

Dusty Rhodes  9:05 

What exactly was it you were looking for?

Aidan O'Connell  9:07 

We were looking for the byproducts ultimately when you see the whole pyre I think it starts out as iron sulfide which is FeS to so iron sulfide reacts Amber water, it goes to a number of chemical reaction passes. One of the byproducts is iron oxide, which is just brown staining, you will see on stone, but the final byproduct is gypsum and gypsum because it is twice the size of an original pyrite crystal it causes the expansion of the stone on the fracturing of the stone etc. So, we want to be able to actually physically see the gypsum crystals which you can under a microscope and you were to much more detail in terms of electronic microscopes and xr D which is X ray diffraction testing, so you can go all the way down that route and if you do the XR D, it will actually give you a printout that says there is pyrite there is other minerals that are other byproducts that you can do physically see them within the stone itself?

Dusty Rhodes  10:04 

And where did you take the samples from?

Aidan O'Connell  10:06 

A lot of samples were all taken from houses where there was damage that was being demonstrated. That looks like it might be an expansive reaction that was happening and what parts of the country all we started out originally in Dublin and that was the our first location is ours in Dublin. Now we had had as the said you the first case ever saw was in callaloo in coach Claire, but that was in blockwork. And there was a few years earlier, but the very first sample of taking stone from beneath her house was in County Dublin.

Dusty Rhodes  10:39 

Is it localized depending on like kind of a local quarry has the problem, or is it a national problem in that it's a quarry who exports bricks nationally?

Aidan O'Connell  10:48 

It's a national issue in that pyrite is present in I'd say every single county in the country almost probably except the ones that never were covered under water, turn the Ice Age etc, by kids going back that far. So pyrite really is is as a result of kind of sedimentary processes where material is deposited. So what what would it be in estuaries historically, or floodplains? Historically, they they are susceptible having pyrite in leash where our head offices I don't I haven't come across a single case where it's pure limestone down here. It's quite clean. But like if we go and say that, yes, it's in mail. Yes, it's in Claire. Yes, it's in Limerick. And we've got about 13 counties of Ireland for we have identified problems.

Dusty Rhodes  11:35 

You're very well known with this particular problem. And you now work on this abroad is pyrite, better or worse around Europe, from what you've seen

Aidan O'Connell  11:44 

in Europe. It's not really the prevalent problem. It has been known in the UK for a very long time. If we go back to the 50s and 60s, and even earlier than that they identified as the Monday Kisha down in Cornwall and Devon. And they saw it there within the blocks because it was a byproduct from the tin mining down Cornwall and Devon. So the tailings a sorter came off the quarries there aren't and from the mines, they would have been used actually made concrete blocks for the houses down there. And ultimately, because it was added as a pyrite in it over the years, they would have did degrade to a certain extent. Now interestingly down there not all houses are a demolition problem or the damage one of them is a varying degrees to such an extent that they are actually sold and you can get raise a mortgage on them, and you can live in them and you and depending on the degrading that they have, you may end up having to do a little bit more maintenance on them over time. But they are still a perfectly satisfactory property. So in Europe, no, I don't see it as hugely I have been consulted in America, in various areas in America, both in Canada and also in the United States itself. Whereby we've been asked to look at various matters over there, Walmart would have been one of our clients, Nova Scotia Bank would have been another one. And invariably, what we would find is, is that in the greater American area of where you wouldn't have any significant snowfalls or severe temperature variations, you would find that the, the problem is quite similar to Ireland. When you go to Canada, it is slightly different because the psyche is significantly different, because for half the year, they will have a permafrost, temperature. And when your temperatures go right down from our research, we've seen that the reaction she kind of stops, or then it starts up again wants to Hampshire ISIS.

Dusty Rhodes  13:39 

Do you feel that engineers are in any way culpable for the problem? Because they were they're at the design stage and the planning stage?

Aidan O'Connell  13:47 

I wouldn't say the engineering industry is culpable. I wouldn't say that at all. What I would say is is that there's a number of external factors that brought this all about ultimately engineers work to standards. Those standards are created by committees working for NACA NSCI are British Standard BS in the UK, or Kiwa, or BBA, which is British Board, Vironment certification. So there's a number of different authorities that are out there that will decide what standards are applicable, etc. So if we then look at how does the standard get created? The is 29. Eight standard was created by a committee that consists of probably, I think, was 16 or 17 people. That's absolutely great. So you would have geologists you'd have government bodies, so from the Department of the Environment and the building control section of the Department of Environment, Geological Survey, Ireland, inquiry people saw there was representatives from the quarry industry from the Irish concrete industry. You had representatives from side vestigation companies like James Lombard was honest, we had Paul quickly ominous we has other people as well, from similar companies that were around, and then you had engineers as well and myself on those Shopko Colin scars, we were there representing engineers, Ireland, Paul Ford of de BFL. was also on the on the same committee. So that large committee then reviewed the whole process. And between us all, we came up with the actual standards.

Dusty Rhodes  15:25 

You strike me as a man who loves a challenge, a born engineer, I'd say, I come back from the UK, and you decided to start your own business. Importantly, with no track record in Ireland and all that kind of stuff. It's not easy. It takes a very special person to do that. You've been in business for almost 30 years, what challenges have you had to overcome in running a small engineering firm?

Aidan O'Connell  15:48 

I was lucky I had, I had a good solid base. I was reasonably financially secure. I have a good job with the country council. So I was okay at the time financially. I didn't put myself under too much pressure from a mortgage perspective, because I bought my house my first house when I was 22, in the UK, so I went over the day after my 21st birthday went towards the UK I've qualified from from UCD and went over to the UK and arrived there was, I think it was 200 pounds in my pocket and worked all summer at the Royal Marine hotel in Dublin. And London, London without a job had no place to live. Absolutely nothing. And my parents said he'd be back by the end of the week, because he won't, he certainly won't be able to find anything that quickly because I was disorganized. Bear in mind the modern you'd have the internet they have absolutely everything I had nothing. So I went to the London University over there, it looked up the Students Union and saw what accommodation was available for students made a few phone calls had a commendation that nice. So I arrived on a Tuesday and Thursday started working with when peace. And I what I can say is after the first week, my wages were just over 230 pounds. And that was more than I had saved learn for the entire summer. So I was gone up this is brilliant. So Well, ultimately, UK worked out very well for me financially and personally and professionally. And then I was able to come back to Ireland in 91 with my wife and we ended up building house in Port leash, and then we were reasonably secure. So I then decided after an OBE years with these kind of counsel and go to give this a try of going of my own. So the biggest challenge at the time was clients. I had one client who was a housing developer, and I said, Okay, well that's one source of income. And if I'm my own Towsley, a daybed, imagine what that generates. Boy, we start over to people, and I sell rice. I'm aiming to make 85,000 pounds at the time. Yeah, so huge money at the time. Yeah, so my target was make 85,000 pounds in the first year. If we if we could do that, I'd said we were fine. We made 79,000. So I wasn't too far out. But I missed the target. But that was a target. And then year two, we made 205,000. So we arrived, it's kind of gone. Okay, this is this is going to work, I think. And then over the years, the child just started to come. So starting in originally you will be thinking with this work are people going to come and while I would always say to people is that if you are good at what you do, and you put yourself out there, it will come with the work will come your clients will come there is absolutely no doubt about it. And it you just have to get over the challenge of having faith in yourself. So that was the initial biggest challenge. I had to believe in myself and say, okay, don't be looking at how other your costs on a weekly basis. How much money do I need to make every single week just keep the doors open? Forget about that. Step back and take the larger picture and go okay, how am I going to be at the end of two months? Have I enough money? Are we still there after two months, and have faith that the work will come in. And that has been the case from day one. Those challenges have changed over the years, we've never had a financial difficulty fortunately, we we've never laid anyone off as such either. There hasn't been a single case in our entire history we had to lay anyone off to to any reason in terms of financial etc. The single biggest challenge we have now is actually getting staff getting good quality staff and bloods in Danika. Think across the entire country in every single facet of business. Modern you know and they qualify from college they the first thing I think they they look at his work my goal. So they look at going to Australia or Canada, New Zealand, America or the UK and this, but the world is our oyster and I would never discourage From from doing this, while I would also love to see them coming back to Ireland, and bringing back their experiences, and fewer and fewer the murders are actually doing this.

Dusty Rhodes  20:11 

Let me ask you more about the challenges of getting people into the firm, good people, because the competition is fierce, you've got people who are moving abroad. And then you've also got your kind of local authorities are able to offer them all kinds of incentives to go there as well. And people are tempted by it. Is this a problem with you as well?

Aidan O'Connell  20:29 

It's a nightmare. Oh, a nightmare. Nightmare is the only word that I could actually describe as COVID was an extremely difficult time for every single business and was extremely difficult for engineering practices, because development stopped dead and roll across the board. And there was large amounts of people, I wouldn't say laid off, but they were temporarily stopped working. And we were similar as well, we at the bulk of our staff, we were able to keep them fully gainfully employed. But there were a small number of people that we had, say, Look, you need to avail of the COVID scheme, payment scheme, because we we literally just had no income or very little income coming in at that time, be able to cover every single person that we have employed. Once COVID, finished, we then started a backup fully with all every single member of staff that we had Bosch, it seemed to then change people's mentality as in or maybe I would like to have a little bit more time at home, or maybe I would like to have a different type of working arrangement. And the I believe we've saved from our own experiences, we lost six staff to councils. And the kind of councils are offering kind of opened the door starting 30 days and you leave which is way above the norm. And then they offer you flex leave of an additional 12 days per calendar year. So effectively, you end up with 42 days of leave quite easily. And on top of that, then you've got sick leave that I was told by two people that left or yeah, you you have sick leave that you basically must take or you should take. So instead of having maybe 2425 days leave with a OCA, the handle but 42 plus maybe another five or six days sick leave, and they're not there, they just don't they're not working. And I know some people in the local authority system are going to take great, great offense from me saying is, but the reality of it is, is that it's very difficult to get in contact with people, local authorities now because they're effectively working from home all the time. And it's very difficult to get them or they're on an annual leave or whatever it is. So getting people getting good qualified people is very, very difficult. And every engineering company is joint has the same challenge, I would say,

Dusty Rhodes  22:52 

How do you tackle that by saying what are the advantages of coming to work for

Aidan O'Connell  22:57 

you. That's where modern New comes in. And that's where my son Philip has joined us. And he is looking to bring us into the 21st century and 22nd 22nd century, if you want to call it that way. So he's going to turn this into a fun place more fun than just that standard engineering company that goes out there. And deals are problems. So he's looking to modernize us in terms of our work practices. So we will be able to give people working from home facilities, we will have make sure that all of our staff are working from the the latest hardware in terms of laptops, and that they can synchronize and work remotely etc. We already are able to do that. But effectively people take their PCs home or the week and have given them a second PC. But now we're going to go down the whole route laptops, even though there's quite a significant infrastructure investment to do that. For engineers, standard laptops are no use, we need quite high powered laptops, which are obviously very expensive to to to purchase. were much more proactive on Facebook, much more points from LinkedIn, I think that it is probably paying some dividends, we're already seeing some people that are are applying directly to us now for employment rather than was having to go through the agency roof.

Dusty Rhodes  24:15 

I'm wondering about an engineer who be listening to the podcast who's kind of like kind of mid level if you like and is thinking you know, one day I want to get up there. I want to be the Managing Director, I want to buy it. Can you tell us a little bit about this process of transitioning, and maybe we can learn something from it?

Aidan O'Connell  24:32 

Well, you can do a buyout. And that is probably the simplest and most straightforward way of doing it. And there's lots of tax breaks in terms of the entrepreneurial reliefs and then transition released going forward so that the process can be done, where it doesn't place a huge financial burden onto the company. But you have to have somebody that you can hand it over to to do this.

Dusty Rhodes  24:57 

You've seen lots of people come into the firm who are ambitious what what impresses you about somebody who wants to move up the ladder within a company,

Aidan O'Connell  25:05 

their drive and their focus. That's what it is. We have one young gentleman now with us as we speak, who is just finished his first year in university. And he came to us for a little bit of work experience, or just to see what things were like, after he had done his junior cert. He has come to us every single summer, since he's the most amazing young man with the most absorbent brain that you could imagine. And to see that young man blossoming slowly, has been full mind blowing is the only way I would say, and then to see other people that come in, and they come in as junior engineers or junior technicians, and they work their way up, and they get their experience and descend them out. The single biggest thrill for me is when I send somebody else to do an investigation or to look at the job. And they write a report on it or write a summary. And I look at that report. And it's so simple to read, it's so simple to follow. I didn't say yes, I've achieved something I've actually taught someone how to do a task. And then if you see a design, when you see somebody comes in with a concept design, and we've done some very unusual ones, they'll be on the TV and things that and they they go from a toss to a concept to paper to the calculations, and then you're physically on site, as the structure see has been put in place. And then finally, the client walks in to take possession of the property at the end of it, and their smile becomes your smile. It's fantastic.

Dusty Rhodes  26:42 

It's almost as simple as applying yourself and showing an interest and and an enthusiasm for the job. Yeah,

Aidan O'Connell  26:48 

I agree totally.

Dusty Rhodes  26:50 

What advice Aiden, would you give to engineers listening who wants to move up the career ladder.

Aidan O'Connell  26:56 

So first of all, if you're an engineer, you're not going to move up the ladder unless you go for chartered status, you have to have chartered status, that's an absolute minimum that you need to be able to bring to the table. Once you are a charters, that then gives you the credibility to be able to sign reports and sign documents that you are qualified that you're recognized to be able to do that going forward. And then if you want to move up the career ladder within an engineering consultancy, you need to be able to see the bigger picture, you're not just looking at a particular steel beam or a particular concrete column or a particular foundation, you have to start looking at the overall building. And you have to start looking at the wider picture as in, is there a better way of doing this? Is our foster wave design approach? And yes, it does come down to economics because ultimately, that's very important bird business here. We're looking at a corner shop keeper, we're trying to sell a product as a service. But we have to show good value to the client.

Dusty Rhodes  27:58 

Can I ask you about becoming a fellow of engineers Ireland? Because it's quite an honor. How did that come about?

Aidan O'Connell  28:04 

So as a result of probably the the main research work that we had done in the pyrite field, back in 2010 1112 13, and developing that, and then working with NUI Galway, and developing all of the testing that we had done, and then writing a number of papers on us, in conjunction with other federal colleagues. I was then proposed and Dr. Brian McCabe was one of the people actually who proposed me. And then there were some other fellow colleagues as well. So yes, it was a great pleasure. I have also had the pleasure of being the chairperson of the Midland region of engineers, Ireland, which, again, allow me to interact with many of my fellow Midlands colleagues. So look, I love engineers aren't I love what it does. And then to get the final accolade to say that your federal of engineers aren't, I think that's great.

Dusty Rhodes  28:57 

What excites you, when you think about engineering in Ireland in the next five

Aidan O'Connell  29:01 

years? I don't know where it's going. I don't know where engineering Ireland's in the next five years. Next 10 years in the next two years is going on. Probably the reason I don't know where it's going is that it's so fast moving its direction is very confusing. Sometimes I have looked at the head of Medusa and if you ever get it in your head of the head of Medusa, it's got multiple snakes going over gone in many, many directions. To a certain extent, I think that we're in that kind of arena at the moment because of all the many technological changes, etc, that are coming out. There have been many, many building fabric changes in the last 10 to 15 years. So where historically you'd be looking at nice brickwork or nice blog or car, car tumbling systems, etc. Now, all of that has changed because they're looking at systems that don't require so much laborer in terms of brickwork and blockwork. Now we're looking at prefabricated systems. Now we're looking at, you know, rainscreen systems, cladding systems, current modeling systems are very fast, very easy to direct. And it's all about speed, speed, speed, speed. And now we're having to go whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second. Now we've lost control here. In terms of some of the building products are all the the golden bullet. They weren't the silver bullet, not the golden silver bullet. They weren't the silver bullets. Why weren't they the silver bullet? Well, because we had Granville fire disaster, which showed us that some of these materials we're putting on the building, make it turn into a Roman candle, rather than a fire safe building for the occupants. And from an engineering perspective, we lost her strong of ourselves there. In Ireland, we're actually very good at understanding how building part of Scots together how we should be addressing matters. We've got the Building Regulations, which are superb in Ireland, we have a very good part B, which is in relation to fire safety here in Ireland, and the whole concept of how you should approach a building in terms of being shorts firesafe. So in England, they have what they call approved document B, which is the equivalent of our Part B, but they then develop this holistic approach of complying with the Building Regulations raishin, fire safety, it was all most of what I feel is on my water, it will be okay. So that will be okay. And that is literally how that process came about. And that they have what they call their approved building and spiritual process, which is a completely independent third party, which is grace, who is there to look at the standards or look the building process and say, Okay, I'm satisfied this building is going to comply with the Building Regulations. And they are then supposed to implement a an inspection process, and others will then sign off on it say, yes, everything was fine. Everything was great. And that paper sports, we watch gold sports be sacrosanct. Now, prior to the approved building, Inspector regime, there used to be the building control officer from the local party, who was anal in terms of his inspections, gave you hell on site, I'd got down into manholes and checked everything religiously. Absolutely. I've seen some of the mean chaser of building sites by fellas who, and he came back up and says, No, I'm refusing this, etc. And that's fantastic. But unfortunately, the UK when they went down this approved building special thing, the paperwork became worthless. Every single building that had been brought into look at over the UK has been a general disaster. So I haven't found that this battle in Ireland, and this new assigned certifier regime here in Ireland, I think, is a great way of dealing with this. But as long as we don't allow that to start losing his credibility, the minute you lose credibility in a controlled process or inspection process, you the entire process fails.

Dusty Rhodes  33:10 

Aiden O'Connell, I can't thank you enough for being so honest and for sharing so much with us. Thank you for coming on our engineers, Ireland amplified podcast.

Aidan O'Connell  33:20 

You're extremely welcome. Thank you very much.

Dusty Rhodes  33:23 

If you would like to find out more about Aidan and some of the topics we talked about today, you'll find notes and links in the show notes area of your player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advance episodes of our Engineers Ireland Amplified podcast on our website at engineersireland.ie.

Our podcast today was produced by DustPod for Engineers Ireland. If you would like more episodes, do click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all of our past and future shows automatically. Until next time for me Dusty Rhodes, thanks for listening.

After 20 years in engineering, John’s career continues to climb. His firm is breaking new ground in engineering practice, they have big plans to expand and have been officially recognised as one of the Best Workplaces in Ireland.

In this episode, we hear how John’s experience and willingness to try new things, has built huge trust in the team and how the freedom they enjoy has delivered huge results for everybody.  We cover everything from taking over ghost estates in the 2008 property crash to finding mentors and how thinking out of the box has found success.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Topics we discussed include:

01:23    Accidentally falling into engineering
04:22    How he found his mentors and how they helped his career
06:52    Why ORS is ‘multi-disiplinary’
10:16    The challenges of finishing a job someone else started
11:39    The secret to winning Best Workplace in Ireland
13:51    Does he take constructive criticism from staff
15:21    Why he has been a fan of remote working since 2015
20:11    The benefits of CPD for engineers in particular
25:45    Expansion and an exciting future for ORS

Guest details

John Brennan is Managing Director and a part-owner at one of Ireland's leading multi-disciplinary building consultancies, ORS. John has been with the company since graduating UCD. In 2019 he led a MBO and today has plans to expand the business across the country and beyond. He is an engineer who has used networking, professional development and new technology to drive success for himself and his team.

Based in Mullingar, ORS is one of an exclusive number of Engineers Ireland CPD Accredited Employers in the country. It is also one of a small number of Irish companies who are ISO certified in standards ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001. ORS are at the forefront of training and technology, where investment in the latest cutting-edge tools allows their staff to perform at their best.

Contact details

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbrennanceng/

https://www.ors.ie/

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/

Quotes

In 2018 we had a draft person who was very productive, efficient and wanted to work at home.  So we did a pilot. He worked four days at home and his productivity went up by 40%. Why? When he was at work, he’d be asked to go into a meeting on X Y or Z project even though he wasn't working on it. That would take two hours out of his day. So there was a lot of distraction. That’s why we started remote work before COVID.

We have 94 staff and they decide where they're most productive and where they want to work. If you can give people that choice, trust gets built. They see that as a reward and it's reciprocated with increased productivity. If you start putting rules around that, such as you must be in one day a week or two days a week, it then becomes an entitlement. And that's when you see productive productivity drop off. Building that trust has been very, very beneficial for us.
Engineers get boxed. A couple of previous podcasts say engineers don't like to put themselves out there. Some are like that, absolutely, but some are not. The key to a successful business is realizing everybody has different wants and needs. Just listen to that and adapt to suit.

Transcription

For your convenience, here is a 90% accurate AI transcription of the episode.

Dusty Rhodes  0:39 

Hello, my name is Dusty Rhodes. Welcome to Amplified the engineers journal podcast where today we're chatting with a man sharing some of his 20 years experience in the business. Currently, he's managing director and a part owner at ORS, one of Ireland's leading multidisciplinary building consultancies, which is headquartered in Mullingar County Westmeath. The company is breaking new ground in engineering practice has big plans to expand. After two years running has been recognized as one of the best workplaces in Ireland. Let's find out more about the company and the man as we welcome John Brennan. John, how you doing?

John Brennan  1:16 

Good. Thanks for having me.

Dusty Rhodes  1:18 

Listen, tell me what attracted you to the whole business of engineering in the first place.

John Brennan  1:23 

And I suppose I have to go back to my my school days I was I was in secondary school and Malanga and the Midlands and the Bacchus was they had a very good career guidance teacher at the time, they called Nick McCoy, who probably recognized that I was okay with maths and science. So I remember him staring me staring me that way I can remember also my dad, bringing me to just for career coaches one or two back then to try and see, you know, what was what I had a flair for. So yes, I was lucky enough to get into UCD. And originais wants to be a chemical engineer, believe it or not, I was I was okay, chemistry, and UCD have a common first year. And I think my lucky stars to this day that to do because it enabled me to, you know, reading it as a Unicode type of engineering wants to be. So I found that I had more of an affinity to civil engineering than anything else went back, you know, the second year of college, I had to choose, and I got some great advice of one of the founders of Rs. And because I'd been there as a student, so he helped me decide. So I picked several, like structured as well, but just preferred to several areas and fluids, hydraulics, blood risk and that kind of thing. So yeah, qualified, chosen three as a civil engineer.

Dusty Rhodes  2:35 

So when you started then working professionally and coming up the ranks as a designer? Was there any particular job that gave you certain satisfaction? You know, kind of like when you go from the theory of university, and you're into the real world, and you have a job and you kind of go, oh, how am I gonna fix this? And you think about it, you think about it, and then suddenly, you have an aha moment to try one that you remember?

John Brennan  3:00 

Yeah, I do that there's one that probably, you know, I'd hold close to my heart because it was the project I used when I became charters. And it was a large and still is a very large industrial park and Melinda Recology, recarpet. Park, I would have been the first project that I worked on. So I had for the recession is I had five or six years of pretty intense civil engineering design. So I would have worked on a lot of projects, small, large, residential, commercial, industrial. And so I was lucky enough to see all of that was luxury repair, I had just started, there was you know, there's four phases in that part. It's, it's still been developed to this day. Last year, only phase four planning permission was granted for Ireland's largest film studio hammertek Studios. And it's also about that. So the full civil engineering design, I would have taken that from phase one right up to phase four over over the years, but mostly in those areas. So, you know, it's when I kind of always think about five to eight, it was chartered, you know, I think five years in and reviews that project a lot focus on the issues that we overcame, I mean, it had Iran's largest surface water attenuation, so that he at one point, it had ground stabilization, there was all manner of engineering issues to deal with. So I remember that quite fondly. And the client in that case is Monica, mighty Kelly, who went on to be a mentor of mine over the years and an animal friend of mine to this day. So yeah, that's, that's what I always had. I was thinking, Well,

Dusty Rhodes  4:22 

tell me a little bit more, Michael, because one of the things that I want to chat about a little bit later, CPD, having a mentor in place, what did you get from Michael as a mentor?

John Brennan  4:33 

I'd be lucky to have a few mentors. Like it's something that's always been very important to me. And I think back to my parents, but then when I started working, the two founders in the IRS business would have been mentors in different ways. And then I've had a couple clients as well. My family just mentioned so it's really you know, it's a number of things like it's listening is a big one. You know, like you some days you have a bad day and you just want to talk somebody voters and vent about who you are necessarily need that The advice you know, but that's that's one way they can be very helpful. But it's just to give you that that push arm. These are people that are very experienced business, they've seen it all, and have come across lots of different issues. And it's something within or us today, we as part of our CPD accreditation with engineers, Ireland, we have a mentoring facility there. So you know, all the teams are encouraged to seek mentors and have mentors from within the business. And like to this day, I depend on mentors for advice. And I'm very proud to say that and it's very important part of what I do from my own personal development and continues to be so.

Dusty Rhodes  5:34 

So if you are listening to this, and you want to bump up your career, or even you just want a little bit of inspiration to kind of get back into working again, to a certain extent, how do you go about looking for a mentor? Is it somebody that needs to be nearby to close? Or is it somebody that you search for online and pay

John Brennan  5:51 

mentors to me that the best that I found have been people close to me that I've got to know over a period of time that they've gelled with that, I suppose that I link up well, with that understand me and understand my personality. Coaching is a little bit different to me, we work very closely in business again with a man called Jerry Duffy, who is a motivation coach and motivational motivational speaker, and he would do a lot of coaching with our team, in groups and singly, particularly on the personal development side. So just mine have come out of just people that would have been close to me what became close to me over a period of time. And I started to realize that these people are actually mentoring me even though I don't really know us. And there are people you know, there are people you can go to for advice and and and they're always there to pick up the phone and they don't necessarily have to be close to you. They just have to be good at it and understand you as best.

Dusty Rhodes  6:39 

I think one of the best piece of advice I ever got was hanging out with the people you want to be like, that was very Yeah, right. This is dumb. Tell me about Rs turnover. For people who don't know about the company. Give me an overview.

John Brennan  6:52 

Yeah, so we are a multidisciplinary team building consultancy, we have nine different service lines in the business. So the more traditional things you'd expect, except the structural engineering, project management, health and safety and infrastructure, and then we have five niche areas that stand on their own, but also feed into the forest floor. So the role of the certifier fire safety, energy, environmental and building survey. So it started off originally 30 odd years ago as a Civil and Structural business with fire safety. And it's developed since then into the nine service lines that we see today. So go back to, you know, when the recession hits originally, like people we don't, we don't have to talk about too much. But there's other life lessons to be learned, you know, back then what we would have from the post recession years, you know, for four or five years after that, until the economy started to kick up, kick off again, we would have had the other night thinking about how we would restructure the business and get the business going again, and I remember 2013 When Patricia gets signed, Mandy Kenny started talking to a green shoots, and we would have had kind of a law month followed by a very successful month very quickly, and then things from then start to get busier again. So in 2015, we started to think very deeply about what made us different as a business. So you know, we've done from when I joined it as a student, or just over college, it was quite small, and it got the business got quite big very quickly. And then it scaled back when the recession happened, like most consultancies did. So in 2015, we were on the verge of scaling again, but we wanted to look back at what we learned from previous and try and take that forward to make the business better. So we started thinking about you know, being multi disciplined, obviously, is a big draw for customers because you know, you can guess, different services under the same roof it's, it's a lot easier for clients and a lot of cases, you know, at one point contact and all that is beneficial. But the big game changer for us. And thing we really started to focus on back then was the culture of the business. So when I joined the business as well, whenever Dean as a student, there was always a very nice feeling to the business. I couldn't explain us back then I now know today that culture, but I didn't know back then they say that that you know, comes or originates from founders of the business which would have been back in the 19th meeting or whatever it was. So we decided that we want to we wanted to work on that formalizes or processes around really marketed to people to try and attract talent into the business around that.

Dusty Rhodes  9:20 

While you've done very well with it because you were one best workplace in Ireland two years in a row and I want to find out why you will not award it later. But tell me about the when you say multi-discipline with O R S, does this branch into areas where you're getting into modular building and also design and build services

John Brennan  9:40 

I chose yet because there's so many so many facets to us. Our simple structural team would be involved in in some modular building and our assigned certifiers will be involved in mature buildings or whatever Fire Safety Engineering so I mean a lot of projects when they come in, you know how you could have your if I'd be one service might be too late. be five or six. So and design builders the same way we would have contractors approach us who would ask us to get involved with them. And they might be just looking for similar structure or they might be looking for fire safety, or they might be looking for both. And the ability to be able to adapt to that is is a key strength to the business.

Dusty Rhodes  10:16 

So let me talk about those dark days, as you mentioned, the the 2008 financial crash when we were just like, you know, all in terrible trouble. One of the things you did at the time, if I'm not mistaken, was taking charge projects.

John Brennan  10:27 

Correct? Yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  10:29 

I'm just wondering what kind of challenges you have to overcome when you're finishing a job that somebody else started?

John Brennan  10:38 

Yeah, good question. I mean, so you back then. Yeah, like there was plenty of fish goes to stay at things like that there was plenty of them. I can remember Aaron's first goes to say it actually was in the station, nonfood called battery court. And I remember, plantar, were involved in the blood center to have a look at dashboards that became service of the business over the next few years. And there was there was I said, there was lots of them. So the challenges are to bring infrastructure up to a standard that is certified at the end and things of course, to stay at things essentially, that the local authority are happy with. And so relationships with the local authority in each case are absolutely vital, having obviously technical knowledge to know when something is is built, right. And only part work, it needs to bring it up standard is obviously just as vital. But they're the two main challenges. I mean, we would have developed lots of very strong relationships with all the local authorities around our HQ at that time, and we would have been involved in lots of those, those ghost states to bring them up. And they're still they're still the odd one, even now, you know.

Dusty Rhodes  11:39 

Now, as I've mentioned, Rs, the company has been recognized officially as the one of the best workplaces in Ireland, it's something that you have won two years in a row. And I know that you've been nominated for many other years, why are you such a great place to work?

John Brennan  11:57 

I suppose, you know, back to the culture points. And 2015, I started thinking about the culture and how to, you know, push processes rather than Markedness. And in Great Place to Work was was something that we had an eye on. And I remember, I remember going to me to see your cognitively back around 2016 or 17. And essentially, the advice I would have got from him was that, you know, if you're going to get involved with this process that, you know, you need to, you know, to see it for what it is it's a process. It's about building trust. And it's about, you know, it's really about how the company uses it utilizes and handles that with team. So we were very clear, it's essentially a 50 question survey that goes out, you know, in our case, just before Christmas, every year, and all the team will answer questions about the entire business. And we always ask them to just be honest, you know, be not to be overly positive, overly negative, just to be honest with what they see and give us the constructive feedback, because without the constructive feedback, well, then we can't we can't make any changes. So we are first year was 2018 2017, I think, and we've been, we've been ranked every year, as a great place to work to just a couple of weeks ago, we were awarded the position of tent in our category, which is you know, really good achievement, there's there's four or five on companies that go for that each year. So the thing that always strikes me, you know, when we do it is that the feedback that comes back from the team is immense. It will and the ideas that come back from the team. So they could be very simple things like at the moment, we have a body of for spring initiative going on where people are encouraged to get together and have a cup of coffee and take a picture and post it up on our team's channel, it could be something very simple as that. It could be something to do with the new reward framework in the business. But there's there's so many ideas, and most of those ideas come from the team themselves, they don't necessarily come from management. So it's something that we take very seriously something that's been very successful for us. And something I think we will continue into the future for sure.

Dusty Rhodes  13:51 

Have you been criticized by staff members for things that are just not working as efficiently as they could? And have you swallowed your pride and made a change?

John Brennan  14:01 

Absolutely, all time. I mean, that's, that's lush, I think, you know, something that's a great place to work is all about is being open to, to change and listening to the people that, you know, these initiatives affect more than ever, you know, or more than more than me. So, we encourage that, you know, I just had a, I mentioned our coach, motivational coach that we use in the business, Jerry Duffy, I was talking to him last week, and we were devising a little course for for the team, some of the teams around constructive conflict, for example, to give them the skills to be able to raise things like that, if they're not comfortable to raise them instantly, you know, there's there's a lot of narrative out there these days about, you know, the different generations of of, you know, workers and engineers and one of the things that I would have, you know, read and seen a lot of in the last year or so is, you know, generations aid and the graduates that are coming out now, there's, you know, they don't tend to criticize as much they don't tend to come with those kind of problems, but that's actually not what we've seen, you know, we've seen, we wouldn't be my extreme Are you there? No, but we certainly we haven't we've seen some of that. Absolutely. But most of the time, and they were able to knock on your door or give you a call on teams and say, you know, this is something that maybe could work a little bit better. I saw him previous company, whatever. So absolutely, I mean, that's absolutely part and parcel of our leadership style on the businesses to be open to things like that. And then,

Dusty Rhodes  15:21 

as you said, the world is changing. I think the biggest change that has happened is remote working. Thanks to thanks to COVID. I don't know, did you do any remote working before COVID

John Brennan  15:32 

We did an internet remote. remote working is something for me. Anyone in the office will tell you, I'm passionate about us. And the reason the reason I became passionate about it was that you wanted to go into business. And in 2015 16, I decided to do an MBA, and I just felt I needed it. And you know, running the business, I very quickly learned was a lot different than running a team. So I spoke to a gentleman called Brian Kennedy, who's the MD of vision built a modular building company actually doing very well down in Galway, and he steered me towards the Hadley MBA, which is in the UK. So I did ask, and you know, you know, blurt all about everything you do in a course like that process, strategy and marketing and all that. But towards the end, you know, I needed to pick a subject for a thesis. And one of the challenges we were starting to see in the business at that point, in 2018, was remote work. So we will we will be asked about remote work. And nobody was really doing it. And I remember vividly one example, we had a draft a draft person who was very productive and efficient, and he wants to work at home, and we weren't sure. And we said we tested. So we did a pilot, and he worked four days at home. And his productivity went up by something like 40%. So we started to look at this and analyze why this was happening. And what we what we saw was that when he was in the office, at headquarters, Malankara, what would happen is because he was so good at his job, he would be asked to go into a meeting on XY or Zed project, even though he wasn't working on. And that will take an hour and a half, two hours out of his day. And in some cases, he wouldn't, he wouldn't need to contribute to the meeting. So there was a lot of distraction. So we started then to move into slowly but surely. And then I did the tests on it and did all the research on on. And so some of the research to see that we came across and that we played into the business. As a result of that. It has been fascinating. I remember again, and give you one example, I remember seeing one stat which always stuck with me back in 2018, Vodafone, carried out a very large survey of about 3000 companies. And back then I think 80% of companies were saying they were going to grow in the next three years. And they also surveyed, you know, a lot of staff and most people were saying the number one thing they wanted going forward was flexibility. When when they asked the companies if they're going to entertain that only 110 said they would. So I remember seeing that stat saying there's something coming here we can get ahead of the curve by by looking at this and and working with it. So we started to remote work before COVID. So we saw the issues that that come with it. It's not it's not simple. It's not straightforward. And that's the things you have to think about and change. So we, you know, we went into all that with that in place. And it's been working very well since,

Dusty Rhodes  18:13 

of course, with huge swings, everybody who was working from home during COVID. And now there seems to be a return to the office. How are you handling office attendance?

John Brennan  18:23 

Again, we've said in offices, so we have our main headquarters in Malinga with 94 staff at the moment. And we have six other hubs around the country. So the theory is that people essentially decide every day where they're most productive where they want to work. So just huge trust there. The reason we do that is again, comes back to one piece of research that we came across back in 2016 17 has to do with policy. And you will see a nozzle of companies now bringing people back for a day a week or two days. And we can the theory behind that is that obviously they need to make some there's there's an important social element. There was a there was a very famous sort of earpiece researched on things in New Agey, actually a few years back with a lady called Professor Kelleher who looked into policy and how that impacts productivity and people coming back to the office. And the theory is that if you can give people that choice, and give them that full choice, that trust gets built, they see that as a reward. And then it's reciprocated with increased productivity, essentially, what if you start putting rules around that and policies around that you say you must be in one day a week or two days a week, it then becomes an entitlement. And that's when you see productive productivity drop off. So we've had, you know, numerous hours of discussion in the company around around this and up to now we've completely resisted bringing people back in for even one day a week. So everybody decides where to work. I mean, like I said, it's not simple. There are loads of things in the background and systems that we have and, you know, committees that we have that work on bringing people together so teams get you know, get together once a month and you know that really He hopes but giving people that choice. And building that trust has been very, very beneficial for us. And we have no plans, you know, in the short term to bring people back in one or two days a week

Dusty Rhodes  20:11 

or so is very good on providing a challenging environment to work in, which engages the brain. So you've always got something interesting to work on you from what you were saying. It's great that you listen to the team and you make changes good and bad based on what they're saying. And you've mentioned mentors as well. Let me ask you about continuing professional development. Why do you think just the area of continuing professional development is important, particularly for engineers.

John Brennan  20:38  

But look at it, it's vital for a number of reasons. I mean, each hrs team, you know, there's nine of them, as I said, and each team has their own strategy that they work to year on year, you know, the challenges for every team to keep ahead of the curve and keep ahead of what's coming down the track. And it's quite unique to each team, actually, in some case, so be it, you know, environmental legislation coming down fire safety. So it's, it's vital to stay ahead of all of that, and then that's a team level. And then at the business level, there are there things that that come. And one thing that's in front of me all the time last few months and years ago is ESG, environmental, social corporate governance. So we had two of our team, Brian Rachel on an ESG course, de becque Yesterday, to learn more about we have our strategy for this developing all the time, but it's becoming it's becoming vitally important. And I mean, that'll count as part of CPD. But as engineers, you know, it's just it's obviously vital that we stay ahead of everything and make sure that we know what's coming downstream, particularly consultancy business like ours, our clients expect us to do that. And engineers Ireland do a fantastic job in you know, making those resources available to us to give us the opportunity to continue with that CPD so it were CPD accredited employer for that for the last number of years. And it was chosen to be accredited last year for a further three years. And with a great team, and they're led by Alan Kane at the moment who encourages everybody to keep their CPD open meet the records. I mean, CPD is every Wednesday the officers are vital. It's a vital part of what we do.

Dusty Rhodes  22:06 

So can you tell me more about it? Like I mean, what's the system and how does it work?

John Brennan  22:10 

So the actual the CPD accredited employer antigenemia, is something that's actually very similar to what we do with the grip place to work. It's a system and a process that's broken down into a number of different margins. And we work at them with mentoring comes into CPDs are powerful, this personal development is a big part of it. And so that's just three, but there's loads of different things. So let me just an example touch on on personal development. I mean, when I did the MBA mentioned earlier on, personal development was a major, major part of that, for me to learn to understand why I walked away, I did, why I reacted to things the way I did to understand myself. So we've brought that into the business in a variety of ways. I'm using a series of personal development tools now. So this could be Myers Briggs would be another one. We're really interesting one at the moment called the working genius, which was found by a gentleman in the States called Pat Lencioni, which essentially says that we all have various natural talent, six different areas, we, you know, some we are like working in two, we don't mind working in the other serve, and then we don't get energy from the last two. So everybody in the company had moments actually going through that within their teams. And all that's trying to do is to get them to understand more about themselves, why they work the way they do, why they're wired the way they are. And it's a very, very powerful tool, if it's used in the right way, the thing you have to watch, and be careful with instead it doesn't put people into boxes. So for example, with disc profiling, there's there's different colors involved. So you have dominant people, you have people that are more interrelationships, you have people that are, you know, steady and careful. And you have to make sure that if somebody's Rounders in a particular way, that they don't, that they don't say, Well, you know, I can't do this, because my color is this. So, you know, we're aware of are less aware of the data has to be, I suppose, you know, managed and watched and make, make sure people understand this is just a tool to help you to understand yourself better. So that that's all part of our CPD. And as I said at the start, it comes into the CPD accredited employer standard, but it also then comes into a great place to work. I remember when we were, you know, reaccredited, last year, for by engineers are on for that next three years, they did actually focused a lot on that personal development site. So I believe that, you know, I've been in any of the other businesses in that in our sector, but I believe that that approach to PD as we call it isn't this bit unusual?

Dusty Rhodes  24:34 

So the course that you did in 2018, which has made a huge change to things, was that something that was inspired by engineers Ireland or kind of came through engineers, Ireland,

John Brennan  24:43 

I would say, in a way yes. I mean, I mean, ever since I started as an engineer, like CPD was always there you know, and something that they I wanted to deal with have to do so learning was something that was more or less ingrained in me and engineers are certainly hope that I mean, I mentioned like the course I did, then, actually, I was noticed that way by one of the founders of the company, he felt that he, or she might actually definitely want to see him one day. And we talked about it. And, and we that we then did it. And then when I when I spoke to different colleagues in the industry and people that I knew a lot of people were taking advantage as well. So yeah, back to the mentoring point, you know, they got a nudge in the right direction felt they needed us. And certainly, you know, learning is a big part of what I do anyway. So I would say engineering a bit to build on reaching,

Dusty Rhodes  25:29 

you actually makes learning sound very inspirational. I want to dive in and learn new things. After chatting to you. Tell me, I'm almost done for our podcast for today. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to talk about?

John Brennan  25:45 

And well, yeah, one thing I mean, we've had a fairly major development in the business. Over the last few months, we've taken in some investments, which is the first time we've done it. And it's, it's been a big change for us. And it's, you know, something that's, you know, it has been a very good decision. And there's a lot of kind of added energy in the business now because of it. So just to give some background on that, if we can, very quickly we, back in 2019, one of our founders retired and we completed a fairly simple and straightforward MBO. And in last year, our other founder, he decided he wants to retire. So when we looked at different options, and an MBO at that point, so we just more or less got too big. So it wasn't going to be as straightforward, it could have been done just just wasn't gonna be as straightforward. So we decided to look at the private equity route. And I was attracted to that, as were our directors. And for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we, we felt that it would enable us to continue the business and continue growing the brand as we had been doing, and focusing on the culture and all that. And we felt that the model of the business, a multi disciplined was suited to further acquisitions and bought hands and things like that. So that was, that was one reason. And then the second reason was that we were getting exposure to people in funds that had a lot of experience in growing businesses, of the old non organically but growing them a lot faster. So we teamed up with Eric bags, we're an Irish bond. We do Andrew Murphy comes to the Alinker and other brands, and they're one of us experience in growing businesses faster. And once we've teamed up with them, and we did that just before Christmas, so we're very close now to our first acquisition, we hope to have complete a second one by the end of the year, all going well. And then obviously, the other teams will will grow organically as they had been before. So we're expecting a lot of growth over the next three to four years. And it's exciting, you know, and it's bringing an added energy to the business.

Dusty Rhodes  27:41 

So the MBO the management buyout has been a huge success. And if you're growing, you're going to need to take on new people, any ideas on how many you look at,

John Brennan  27:48 

we estimate anywhere between, you know, 200 to 50, at the moment over the last four years. So it's a it's a big number. And we focus I mean, back at the culture clients, lean recruitment and retention is the biggest challenge in our industry at the moment, laundromat deployment out there, I mean, you need as business to do something different. And that's where culture comes in. So we have a great team working background reg. D for me during working background, extracting talent, retaining talent as part of our cultural development committee. So yeah, so it's, I'd say to people listening in, if they're interested, just keep an eye on our COVID-19 website,

Dusty Rhodes  28:24  

grab any particular place, where you're going to be opening new offices, and

John Brennan  28:27 

we've just opened one in Cork, and we're going to we're going to call it tomorrow when the UK is, is something that will probably happen next year, I would imagine. But again, back to the module, it just depends on where the work is and where our team come from. So if we end up hiring aggressively over the next two years, and we have people in places like carry or long or short, we will very quickly open a hole but give them a location to go to so and watch the space sector.

Dusty Rhodes  28:52 

While John Brennan, Managing Director of ORS, it's been an absolute pleasure to listen and learn from you. And thank you for joining us on our podcast today.

John Brennan  28:59 

Thanks. It’s been a pleasure.