In 2023, we celebrated turning 20!
These last 20 years have been significant. One of those team members who remembers how it all started is Brendan Wardle who in January, marked his 20th Anniversary with Lucion. As Lucion’s longest-serving and first-ever employee, we thought this would be a great opportunity for Brendan to tell us about his time with Lucion.
Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Brendan and I’ve had the great fortune to be Lucion’s longest-serving, and first-ever employee.
20 years ago, in January 2004 it was my first day working for the founders of the company, Paddy and Charles. The first week was a shock to the system, I had a couple of days working away at the big one of the biggest breweries in Burton upon Trent. I was feeling very proud in our, ‘new to us’, W reg Mercedes Vito Van which was all freshly liveried up in the original Lucion logo (click here for a blast from the past).
The first office where we were based was on the first floor of a former lab in a former council-run abattoir from the 1950’s. The reason being because it was cheap (very cheap at £27 a fortnight in rent!). For the very few that can remember it – you understand why.
After gaining my P402 it was very much out on the road doing all different types of surveys and spending a lot of time in Northern Ireland as we had one of our first contracts for surveying schools over there. This was a big break for Lucion as we then secured tenders multiple northern Councils, for whom we still work with to this day.
In 2006 Lucion won a large contract to survey a Naval Base. We knew we couldn’t staff it from the North East so we recruited in the South. Our Chief Executive Officer, Phil Rozier was the successful candidate, sporting a little more hair back then. I had the privilege to take Phil on his first Lucion asbestos survey at a college located in Durham – I was very jealous when he rocked up in his brand new 06 plate Ford Focus. From there on we’ve always chatted about our love of motorcycles and skiing when we see each other.
I think the most memorable job for me whilst being at Lucion was doing a pre-demolition survey of the former Gateshead Town Centre. This included (for those of you who have seen ‘Get Carter’ starring Michael Cain) the infamous Multi Storey Car Park. The car park features heavily in the film with Alf Roberts (Coronation Street) where he gets thrown from the top during an altercation with Michael Cain.
As you’ll all know change is a constant at Lucion and the very first acquisition was of AOH Consultants in 2011, most of whom got tupe-ed over and are still working for the company now – Louise Tolan, Alastair Finlay, Malcolm Ingram, Ben Green and Chris Parr, to name a few. This presented me with an opportunity to be the first-ever Operations Manager of the Gateshead office, something I’m very proud of.
I’ve worked with some fantastic people over the years and have become good friends with many, even going on Mountain Bike holidays to the Alps with some.
The job has given me opportunities to see all parts of the UK, something that was never going to happen when I was working down coal mines in North East of England for the first 8 years of my working career.
Now I’m doing a job that I genuinely love. I hope that the many more years to come will be just as exciting and the company that started with very little goes onto all the success it deserves.
Discover what it’s like to work at Lucion, hear from some of our previous Site Technicians and explore available roles here.
