Archibald Henderson started his engineering career in 1895, aged 17, working for David Cunningham who was an Engineer for Dundee Harbour Trust. During his training he worked on many marine projects around the Dundee area gaining hands-on experience of civil engineering.
As a fully qualified engineer, he left Dundee Harbour Trust to go and work on projects around the world. He worked in Wales, Spain, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and more. One of his most impressive projects was in Brazil where he worked on a major dredging, reclamation and harbour works project. The value of the project in 1909 was around £6M, which would be closer to one billion in today’s money.
Archibald returned to Scotland in 1913 with a vast amount of engineering and life experience. At this time he became the Resident Engineer for Macduff Harbour, a position he held until he died.
After WWI, Archibald went into Partnership with G. Gordon Nicol, and began trading as Henderson and Nicol. In 1919, at age 41, Archibald and Gordon set up office at 21 Bridge St, Aberdeen and started work specialising in marine civil engineering. The firm worked on many strategically important harbour and marine projects in Aberdeen, Macduff, Port Seton, Stonehaven, Rosehearty, Girvan, Fleetwood, Lerwick, Peterhead and Nairn.
Archibald was the President of the Aberdeen Association of Civil Engineers from 1923 to 1924.
During the 1930s, a time of world-wide depression, the company found trading conditions challenging, and Gordon Nicol decided to leave the partnership in 1938, leaving Archibald as the sole Partner until his death in 1947 at the age of 69. His eldest son, Ian took over the business followed by his youngest son, Gordon, who joined the firm in 1971. Today, no family members work in the organisation, but their legacy has been built upon to take the business into the 21st Century. The current Partnership of seven Partners manages a staff of nearly 80 people; offering a wider range of services – adding to engineering design with architecture design, project management, environmental services, geotechnical engineering design, principal designer role and diving inspections in industries such as energy, defence, healthcare, industrial and commercial installations as well as marine which still accounts for around half of our annual revenue.
Source – www.arch-henderson.co.uk
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Molly Bennett, Commercial Graduate won the ‘Champion of the Year’ category, which recognised her work in championing equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) initiatives within Cavendish Nuclear. Her drive to champion and promote gender balance and make tangible change has inspired and generated an entire community of people who now want to follow her lead and be a part of changing the stereotypical attitudes that still exist in today’s world.
Molly said, “Winning the ‘Champion of the Year’ award is not only an achievement for myself and the different work I’ve completed over the last year, but most of all its a testament
to everything that Cavendish Nuclear is doing as a company. Cavendish recognises that increasing and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion is not only the right thing to do to ensure one inclusive culture, but that it also makes good business and commercial sense. I’ve been with the company for just over 2 years now and I believe that there has be
en a visible step change in this area. I am really looking forward to the future to see what more we can achieve together.”
Phil Craig, former Managing Director of Dounreay and Cavendish Nuclear employee, secured the Ally of the Year award and Molly Bennett, Commercial Graduate, won the Champion of the Year award.
Phil was the first Managing Director of a Site Licence Company to sign the Women in Nuclear UK pledge, committing the time and resources required to make a difference at site level. During his time at Dounreay, once a fast reactor research site and now one of Europe’s most complex decommissioning projects, he put people at the centre of the company’s mission by leading, championing and mentoring others to affect change. This was achieved whilst delivering major complex projects of strategic national importance and achieving a 90% improvement in the Dounreay site’s safety record.
Phil said, “It’s a real honour to have been nominated for a Women in Nuclear award. For me it means that we are being recognised for putting people at the centre of our business. That mentality, and commitment, bodes well for the long term. I’m incredibly proud of all of the work that has been undertaken at Dounreay during my time there, specifically in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion. All of this work and the reason for this nomination is because of the effort and commitment of the site staff, who are committed to delivering the mission but also to making a difference in the people agenda. To have been part of that journey and to be recognised by them is the most humbling part of all”.
Cavendish Nuclear is committed to proactively addressing the gender balance in the industry. As an employer who is actively enhancing the professional development of women in order to inspire the next generation of females into the nuclear sector, it has substantially raised its profile and brand in recent years to drive recruitment in this area, which is paying dividend.
The team at Thurso-based Envision Engineering and Design provides product and engineering design services to clients in many industrial sectors from nuclear, oil and gas to hydro and renewables.
With an increasing number of clients, the firm needed to more to a larger building. Highlands and Islands Enterprise supported Envision with a £13,000 grant to set up at The Cottage on Davidson’s Lane.
The company bought the premises which were previously owned by Pentland Housing and had been empty for years.
Since purchasing new 3D laser scanning equipment with support from the enterprise agency, the business has won many contracts for the energy industry and continues to increase its turnover. It also plans to create more jobs.
Engineering graduate Gaius Bews (24) was recruited following a year-long appointment at Envision through the ScotGrad graduate placement programme.
Company director Stuart Anderson said: “Investment in state-of-the-art equipment and an increasing client base is fuelling our expansion. We were delighted to take Gaius on following his placement and he is a most welcome addition to the team at Envision. He has really proved himself, bringing fresh ideas, new skills and up-to-date market knowledge.”
Gaius said: “It’s a fantastic company, and having worked with the team over the past year it’s clear to see its growth and ambition in a short time. Envision is always looking at what could be done better, and developing new projects.”
Get all the latest news from the Chamber and our members in the November 2018 edition of our newsletter in Executive Magazine! Click the image below to open the newsletter in an online PDF viewer.
Get all the latest news from the Chamber and our members in the August 2018 edition of our newsletter in Executive Magazine! Click the image below to open the newsletter in an online PDF viewer.
Get all the latest news from the Chamber and our members in the May 2018 edition of our newsletter in Executive Magazine! Click the image below to open the newsletter in an online PDF viewer.
Get all the latest news from the Chamber and our members in the February 2018 edition of our newsletter in Executive Magazine! Click the image below to open the newsletter in an online PDF viewer.
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