Building - Electrical

Name: Michael Slabber

Rank on Exit: -

Years of Service: 6 Years

Qualifications Gained: -

He’s only 26 but in six years Michael Slabber has left his family, moved to a new country, undergone extensive training to join the Army, served in Afghanistan, trained in Kenya, qualified for a new career and set up his own business in London.

From the front line to the home front, the former British Army soldier has found retraining as an electrician and setting up his own business has helped him adjust to civilian life. Getting used to the fact that his life will never be the same again was never going to be an easy transition. However, no longer did Michael need to feel his life was at risk on a daily basis as he struggled to get back into a normal civilian routine.

‘It’s nearly been a year since I left the Army and I’m still adjusting in some ways. Moving from a confined military base, where you’re used to working and being with people 24 hours a day, seven days a week is hard. However it’s those guys who become your family while you’re there, as you all share one thing in common and in those situations you learn how to make the best of them. Leaving that bubble of camaraderie to go to the civilian world, where you may not even know your neighbours, was a shock to the system and one that I had to adapt to.’

Michael joined the Army aged 20, having just moved from South Africa to the UK. He was so keen to join the Armed Forces that he signed up at the Army careers office just a few hours after touching down in London.

As a member of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, Michael was part of a dedicated, professional and highly trained unit. Operating in sweltering temperatures across rough and hazardous terrain, his role was to identify enemies in countries such as Afghanistan, spending up to seven months overseas. ‘We often faced dangerous situations, but no matter what position you undertake within the Armed Forces you’re always in a position of threat – it’s something that becomes part of your role.

‘Although my time in the Army was long, hard and gruelling, it was also rewarding knowing that I was helping people and making a difference to the local communities we operated in.’

Accomplishing everything that he wanted, Michael knew it was time to leave the Army. He wanted something different and was set on pursuing another huge change in his life – setting up his own business.

‘I came across a company called New Career Skills, which retrains mature career changers, and signed up for the electrical course straight away after speaking to one of their lead electrical tutors. His knowledge of the industry and his character is what convinced me to study with them.

‘I’ve always been interested in electrics; it started at a young age when I used to watch my father being the handyman at home. I qualified as a Domestic Electrical Installer through New Career Skills in June 2010. It was hard work trying to juggle my studies while I was based in Kenya for three months and all over the UK, completing my training for the Army, but I enjoyed the challenge. Most evenings I was sat out in the Kenyan bush with all my books, trying to fit in as much study time as I could.’

Now Michael has set up his own business, London Electrical Solutions Ltd, with help from New Career Skills and his colleague, Stewart, who also retrained with the company. ‘We’re currently in the process of getting registered with NICEIC, the electrical contracting body for electrical installation. The certification will be a huge development for the business as it will allow us to undertake and certify any work we do.

‘I’m also keen to make the company green and one aspect I want to offer is solar panel installation. I’ll be doing some more training with New Career Skills to ensure I’ve got the right qualifications and hopefully London Electrical Solutions will be one of the few installation business in London to offer Solar PV. Renewable energy has a huge part to play in helping the environment we live in. If we can help reduce the damage that has been done over the past few decades, we will be able to preserve the natural environment for generations to come.

‘In the next few years we’re aiming to get maintenance contracts with all local estate agents, shops, pubs and restaurants, where we’ll help provide all their electrical needs. We also hope to expand the company and employ more staff – potentially with students who have retrained with New Career Skills.

‘Although I do miss the Army and the camaraderie of being around the guys, I know I’ve made the right career change financially and for my future.’

Published September 2011

Name: Pat Hayton

Rank on Exit: Corporal

Years of Service: 22 Years

Qualifications Gained: Four-week painting and decorating course

Having specialised as a chef, Corporal Pat Hayton left the RAF in 2009 after 22 years’ Service, and is now working in a quite different field: managing online ordering and the distribution of goods, including packaging, shipping and stock management, for an electrical retailer.

The skills and experience he gained while in uniform that he now finds useful in civilian life include ‘good discipline, motivation, ability to work as part of a team and in a team environment, and respect for the importance of everyone’s role’. He found his CTW ‘good for CV and interview experience’, while other resettlement training took the form of ‘a two-week tiling course and a four-week painting and decorating course’ with Specialist Trade Courses.

‘The course was extremely well run – they were brilliant. The instructors were fantastically knowledgeable and had all the equipment. They let you learn at your own pace and were very supportive. If you were slow in picking something up, they would take time to make sure you mastered the technique. If you were quick to learn, they made sure you moved on to something else. The skills I learned have given me a skill for life and will always enable me to find work in the future.’

On leaving the Forces, he says that ‘I already had a job lined up through a personal contact: painting and decorating’. Moving on from that, he has been in his current job with the electrical retailer for nine months now and says ‘I like being part of a busy company and working as part of a team’. In addition, he welcomes the opportunities the job offers for him to ‘make decisions and be confident, stand by my decisions and think on my feet’.

His new career differs from his Service role in that there is ‘a lot less pay in my current job. In the Services, you don’t have to think about day-to-day decisions, while in civilian life, you have to organise everything for yourself and your family’.

Published January 2011

Name: Tony Petheram

Rank on Exit: Lt Cdr

Years of Service: 22 Years

Qualifications Gained: Personnel management skills

Having spent 22 years in the Royal Navy as a Warfare Officer (including PWO/CO and XO), and leaving in 2007 as a Lt Cdr, Tony Petheram is now working as an electrical and plumbing contractor as boss of his own company, AJP
Services Ltd.

The skills and experience he gained while in uniform that he now finds useful in civilian life include ‘organisational and personnel management skills, as well as drive and an invaluable ethos’. He found his CTW ‘interesting’ but has not utilised all the information provided as ‘I set up my own business after leaving the Service, so have not used it’. He took two other resettlement courses – a four-week intensive electrical contractors’ package with PGL Exeter, and a two-week practical plumbing course with the Plumbskill Centre in Dorset – both of which he found ‘excellent’.

Describing his business, he says: ‘We are a small electrical and plumbing services company, based in mid- and East Devon. Our primary market is domestic electrical and plumbing work, but we also undertake commercial and agricultural work, and are now moving into micro wind turbine installation in the south-west. The company has three employees: me, my wife as company secretary, and an apprentice.’

Although it is, he says, ‘hard work setting up your own business from scratch’, he enjoys ‘the work and the interaction with customers, and spending more time at home with family. I like being my own boss, the freedom of planning and execution, little or no commuting, being able to spend time in my local community (a Devon village), training up and bringing on an apprentice, and all the new experiences.’ Dislikes include a ‘loss of influence (I had some interesting staff jobs before discharge)’.

The major differences between his Service role and his current job are that he now works in a ‘much smaller team (two of us on tools rather than a Ship’s Company), there is obviously the smaller focus that working as a local small business brings – as well as a host of differences between being part of a large organisation and being your own employer’. There is a significant difference in salary but, he reports, ‘our cost of living has also reduced considerably since leaving’.

Published January 2011

Building - Electrical - Case Studies