Profile

I really love having a job and career which I can see the direct outcome from. I will often walk through a pharmacist, or a supermarket and see pharmaceuticals or cosmetics on the shelves which I have physically made, or had a significant impact on their progression from test-tube to the market.  It doesn’t matter if that thing I see is saving people’s lives from a rare disease or it just makes their hair or skin lovely and soft, I still get a thrill from seeing it!

My job, working in a small chemical company (but part of a multinational) in Manchester means that I have to work hard, but see results quickly. this gives me great job satisfaction when it works! I love to go home to my family and cook with them, spend time out on the moors and sport climbing with my friends. Climbing allows me to channel my determination into something outside of work, while keeping me strong, and fit!

My wife and son are Spanish, and we only speak Spanish at home so I gradually becoming more fluent. Frequent trips to Spain to see the Spanish side of my family have given me a love for Spanish culture, people and their food.  I’ve learnt a lot from their attitude towards life and familial support, and hope to move to Andalusia at some point in the next 5 years to live and work.

We are paid by external companies to make chemicals for them. Usually these companies give us a reaction which they have carried out in a lab on small scale (1-5 grams), but they know they need more and don’t have the facilities to do so. They therefore ask us to further improve the reaction and make it suitable to perform on a much larger scale. Normally we scale up to 1-2 kilograms first (this is my lab!) and once we have proven the reaction works well, and safely, the products will be scaled up further to our plant facility. On our plant we have the capacity to make 100’s of kilograms at a time.

I have a very varied job, ranging from people management and large scale chemical process supervision (checking the reaction goes according to plan!) to small scale research and development and lab equipment maintenance.

I wake up and get my young son out of bed, then prepare him for nursery. We have a family breakfast together (usually toast and a coffee), then I drop my son at nursery on the way to work. I have flexible working hours, so I am able to arrive at work any time between 07:30 and 10:30 and am able to work from home if I can. Typically I arrive at work at around 09:30 and check in on any ongoing production , and provide chemical support where it’s needed. Normally this means fixing any issues which were unexpected (like the reaction not going to completion, filtration issues or analytical support). I will then work at my desk sorting paperwork and have a couple of meetings until lunch at around 1 pm. After lunch I’ll check back in on my current productions, and assist where necessary (sometimes getting stuck in with working at the vessels or filters). If not, then I’ll work at my desk, planning and prepping for the following week’s productions and go home between 5:30 and 6 pm.