Chloe Hughes is a Stress Engineer at Morson Projects. Having a long-standing enthusiasm for aviation nurtured by a love of sci-fi, Chloe has trodden an unconventional path to lead her to working in aerospace. For PathFinders, we spoke to her about her journey and the lessons she’s learned along the way.
When I was at school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I wasn’t really interested in many things. I knew I liked maths, and I loved problem-solving, so that was something that I really wanted to get into. I was lucky enough to come from a family of engineers, so I knew what an engineer was. However, I didn’t get much influence from women in engineering, so I didn’t really feel that it was something that I wanted to do at the time.
I left school at 16 and went to college. I decided to do a BTEC in electronic engineering and I loved that. I didn’t get into university at that point, so I worked in a bank for six months, hated it, and went back to college, to do a HNC in electronic engineering.
I’m from the Isle of Man, so there’s not much going on in terms of engineering and design and things like that. I knew that I had to try and get off the island to try and broaden my career choices. I went to university in London and did electronic engineering again, it was just kind of a continuation.
Even though I was very interested in aerospace, I just kind of had to keep going with what I already had. Well, that’s what I thought, because I didn’t really have anyone to tell me what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I finished my degree. I couldn’t really find a job in London. There wasn’t much going on engineering-wise there, so I decided to study a masters in Sweden in robotics.
That was an amazing thing to do. If there’s an opportunity for you to go abroad and study, definitely do it because it just opens your mind. It’s amazing. I met so many amazing people. I really enjoyed robotics. I think it was really fun. It’s the future. There’s just so many different things, like with AI and the hardware, software like everything.
One of the modules I took in Sweden was A.I. Just seeing and understanding that A.I. is just maths, it’s weird. You can really boil down decision-making to just probability, and it’s just amazing that you can just take that little bit of maths and then put that into an algorithm, into a software program, write a script about it and you have something intelligent, basically, and making decisions.
Then, I did an Erasmus to Lisbon, Portugal, to do my master’s thesis there in human-robot interaction, which was very interesting. After that came back to London, I was there still wasn’t as many jobs as I wanted there. I did struggle and then the pandemic hit. I was still in hospitality at the time, so I was put on furlough at that point.
I took it to myself to be like, “what do I actually want to do?” And that was aerospace engineering. I always wanted to do that, and I didn’t realise that I could. So that’s when I decided, let’s go back to university and do my master’s in aerospace.
I’ve always been into sci fi. It’s one of my favourite things. Watching different things when I was younger, like Red Dwarf, being on a ship. It’s just always been really cool to me! Things that can fly, like, how can things fly? It seems so abstract, but it’s real. Even if you get something up in the air, how is it going to stay there?
I met Maria Williamson. She was my mentor at the University of Salford on the Go Beyond scheme. She helped me with my interview skills as I’m rubbish at them and I think she saw some passion in me and thought it would be great to get me on the team at Morson Projects. So that’s how I got into submarines and then getting into aerospace was more about the networking at Morson Projects.
I’m currently a stress engineer and I do a lot of analysis on different structures to be able to see if the forces and pressures that are exerted on an airplane, they’ll be able to withstand that, so it won’t fail in any way. I just it’s amazing like to see how much work goes into it, putting my name on that as well, it’s amazing.
Morson Projects has recently embarked on a STEM ambassador scheme, where engineers across the organisation are trained how to engage young people in local schools in STEM activities. Chloe is one such ambassador:
I’ve chosen to be a STEM ambassador because I feel that I didn’t really have anyone there outside of my family to actually tell me the different things that engineers can do. I didn’t really like school that much and I was much shyer when I was younger. Having someone take notice of me and say like, you know what? You can do something like this, I think would really like it would that would have been amazing to see a bit more of that I would love to be able to just inspire someone outside of like their family or the norms that they see every day. And especially young girls or people that don’t know what they want to do in their lives, because it is such a fun thing and there’s so many different things you can do.
It’s not just aerospace or power or submarines. You could do product design. Everything is engineered. It’s amazing for people with all different backgrounds, different diversities and different ideas of how things can be made… it’s just the best thing in engineering!
Another Morson Group engineer who has taken an unconventional path into the industry is James Baillie. He started off as a professional footballer, before leaning on his creative flair at school with design software to become a CAD technician with Waldeck. Hear his story here
“When we went to see the careers lady, we literally were given a handful of potential careers that we could consider. None of those were what were deemed as male orientated careers. They were all focused around becoming a nurse, becoming a teacher. The options of becoming a mechanic, becoming an engineer, and getting into something a bit more industrial just, just weren’t there for us.”
Becky Veal is Associate Director for Engineering Delivery at Morson Projects. Despite aspiring to be a teacher, Becky initially felt the call of computer science, but when that avenue was closed to her she found herself working within engineering recruitment, starting a successful, if unexpected, career in the industry. As part of our PathFinders series, spoke to Becky about her career journey.
Watch her video interview below:
What did you want to be when you were younger and what did you study at school?
When I was younger, I really wanted to be a teacher. I used to really enjoy bossing my brother around! I did my GCSEs, and I did my A-levels in English literature, computer science and history. I was fortunate enough to be one of the first people that got enrolled on computer science, and I thought, this is fantastic. I’m going to be able to have a fantastic career learning all about computers. And this is my career path for being a computer programmer. Unfortunately for me, the lady that taught the A-level broke her leg and we were left without a teacher. And so the grades that I anticipated to get, unfortunately, didn’t happen for me. And the job offer that I had lined up post my A-level results as a result of that to become a trainee programmer didn’t happen either. The opportunities in engineering weren’t really promoted when I was younger. It was a career which really wasn’t identified. I can remember going to my careers advice day through school and being told one of my options that would really suit me would be becoming a nurse. So engineering wasn’t really a factor for a career for me.
So how did you actually get into engineering?
I started my career in engineering as a technical administrator, working for a recruitment and engineering consultancy company based in Bath. They were an organisation that were heavily involved in the aerospace and defence industry, and I looked at design consultancy work and technical publications supporting clients like Leonardo Helicopters and GKN Aerospace. I was quickly propelled into the engineering industry. I went from being a technical administrator straight into a recruitment manager. Within the period of three months and quickly found myself traveling across to the Isle of Wight to go and visit GKN Aerospace to deliver a design and technical review meeting, which was a massive learning curve for me, but it gave me a great exposure to the engineering industry and decided that I really wanted to take the challenge and further my career within this industry.
I worked for an organization whereby we recruited for offload packages of work in our offices and quickly grew that team to over 200 people. As a result of that, I became a programmes director to support the packages of work and quickly evolved that around supporting a lot of client reviews, developing new business then decided that it was really time for a new challenge.
Talk to us about that next challenge, setting up your own company
I made the decision that I was going to collaborate with some other professionals in the industry, and we decided that we were going to start up our own recruitment and consultancy business. That was a fantastic experience for me, gave me experience in terms of setting up a new business from scratch, looking at how we were going to market our business into the aerospace and defence industry and building up new clients from scratch. We grew that business successfully and fortunately Morson Projects decided that we would make a fantastic acquisition and I joined them in 2015 as a business unit manager supporting the aerospace and defence sector.
What does your role at Morson Projects entail?
I’m currently working with Leonardo Helicopters, supporting their engineering division and also the product support division as well. We currently have over 150 contractors and permanent members of staff working on that activity. I have been working with Leonardo for over 20 years now, so it’s a really well-established client relationship that has been cherished and developed over the years. We have collaborative teams across the whole of Morson Projects that supports both engineering, design and stress activity. We are about to enter into a massive phase of becoming a prime supplier at Leonardo Helicopters within the engineering division.
Who would you say has been your biggest mentor along the way?
I had a fantastic mentor, a gentleman called Richard Moore, who was a fantastic guy. He worked on Concorde in terms of doing all the loft designs, was very well respected within the engineering industry, and he was an inspiration to me, a fantastic mentor. He coached me through how to deliver to the client, how to communicate with the client, and how how to ensure that the chain of communication were well established to deliver successful packages of work. He was a fantastic mentor and somebody that I will always be thankful to for supporting me throughout my career.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
I think if I could revisit and tell my younger self, be confident in your decision-making processes, be passionate and don’t be frightened to go for it. it’s okay to press the reset button and start again.
If you feel that this is a path that you’re not happy with. Revisit your thoughts and your career aspirations and find out what you’re really passionate about and just go for it.
Another Morson Group engineer who has taken an unconventional path into the industry is James Baillie. He started off as a professional footballer, before leaning on his creative flair at school with design software to become a CAD technician with Waldeck. Hear his story here
Professional boxer Natasha Jonas has conquered everything the sport has thrown at her throughout her successful career. From humble beginnings in Toxteth, just outside of Liverpool, to becoming the first-ever female BBBoC Boxer of the Year in 2022, Tash Jonas navigated the challenges of an amateur career, enjoyed Olympic success, overcome a disappointing loss to Katie Taylor and managed it all while excelling at her most important job – being a mother.
Our in-depth interview with her comes at a time when she is riding high. Currently unified WBC, IBF and WBO female light-middleweight champion of the world, she also sits on a government boxing board and enjoys being a role model for women in sport.
She talks openly about many topics, from boxing and training to life on the quieter side of the ropes with her daughter, Mela. She discusses the many challenges she has faced along the way, from struggling to balance work with her Team GB career to managing her busy schedule. She also talks about overcoming self-doubt, what boxing has taught her about herself and much more.
In the early days of her amateur career, Tash had to balance a day job with the rigours of training camps and, eventually, international trips representing her country with Team GB. With the intense pressure of needing to deliver on the world stage, Tash needed to find work with an organisation that offered her the flexibility she needed:
“I was just working on the phones, mainly for banks and for internet companies, for Vodafone. And then I got on the England team. Now when you make it there, sometimes you need we’d be going away to Europe, the European championships or even the world championships. And we used to have a training camp the week before, so I’d be going to the gym before I started work, going after work and then it if comes to the big competitions we’d probably have a ten-day training camp, so then I’d need ten days off, plus the week of the tournament. And as anyone knows, it’s hard to get 20 days off work at a time for 2 to 3 tournaments a year. You’ve only got so many holidays and I’m like, well, you need to give me the holidays or I’ll have to leave. And they were like, well, you’re going to have to leave. So, I was in and out of jobs for a long time in England. And then the council did an initiative where if you were, an athlete heading towards that like Olympic star program, this was Liverpool City Council, they would sponsor you a job.
So then I got a job working in the call centre in Liverpool Direct and any time that I needed off for training I was allowed off. It wouldn’t always be paid, but you’d still be allowed the time off and you could return to your job. So that helped a helped massively because then I always knew I was coming back to a job. And then I got onto GB and then you’re a funded athlete, so that Monday to Thursday or Monday to Friday, sometimes you’re just living in Sheffield, you come home at the weekend and then go back there on the Monday.”
“Sport, and especially boxing, it’s just a skill that I’ve learned to be good at. But the life lessons that you learn from it, that I’m resilient, I’m hardworking, I’m determined, I’m motivated, I can speak to people on different levels, work along or as part of a group… if you ask a business leader what they would want their employee to be, they’d probably say those things! There are life skills that I’ve learned along the way, and sometimes they were skills that school couldn’t teach me.“
When you have a career like Natasha Jonas has, coupled with parenthood, you’re bound to be taught a lot of lessons. When asked if she thinks this has changed her, she said:
“I think everyone changes at different stages in life, like a metamorphosis into something else and certain things will bring out the best or the worse than people, but they’ll make you change and evolve into something else. And I think being a mom and the contract troubles that I had and just the ups and downs of general boxing in life always make you evolve into a different person. I think one of the biggest things about motherhood, you’re so focused on the results as an amateur in that Team GB set up because you were expected to get medals. A medal was your bare minimum and if I had a bad spar it would wreck my week. I’d go to a tournament and if I didn’t get a medal, I’d be panicking that I was going to get kicked off, thinking I need to do better. It would be pressure to the next tournament. As a mother, as soon as the door shuts to the gym and the door opens to the house, I’m just mum. That switch off really hopes mentally more than anything. My daughter doesn’t understand or care if I’ve had a bad spar, she just wants dinner to be done! She just needs you to be mum. Also, appreciating the moment more, the living in the now instead of beign axious about what’s coming or upset about what’s been. Living in the present.“
We speak to Ian Blease about his story; from aspiring footballer to part-time rugby league player at Salford in the pre-professional era, juggling a day job in construction with the intense physical and mental fitness required to compete at the highest levels of sport.
Ian Blease is the Director of Rugby and Operations at Salford Red Devils. Already a club legend from his playing days with the Salford rugby league outfit in the 1980s and 1990s, Ian returned to the club in 2016 to take up a senior role in the boardroom. During his tenure, he has helped transform the fortunes of the Super League side, with successes including a 3rd place finish in the league, a trip to the Grand Final, and a Challenge Cup final.
Ian discussed his route into rugby league:
“When I was young I was actually a football-mad, like a lot of people in the city of Salford and surrounding areas. I supported Manchester United and still do to this day. I was never quite good enough to make it as a youngster coming through. I left school and a friend of mine, Mike Holliday who has sadly passed away, was really into his rugby. I think his brother Les Holliday was playing for Swinton at the time, so I went down to the local team. I told my dad I just fancied giving it a go. And it was bizarre, within I think about eight months scouts were coming down.We had a good team at the time. I think of the team, 12 ended up signing professional terms. I went to Salford, nearly went to Wigan, nearly went to Leigh. Salford was where I really wanted to go really, because I thought at the time it was an up-and-coming club. John Wilkinson had just taken over as chairman and manager, and I made my debut within the first season. I stayed there for ten years, maybe more, got a testimonial, played in some great teams, played in some average teams shall we say, but forged a really good career doing that alongside my work at the time because it was semiprofessional.”
He discussed what it was like as a local lad making his debut for the club:
“There’s a mixture of really nervous obviously, but excitement. And you’re proud because your parents and your family are there watching and you’re gracing the pitch that legends have trodden and played there before. So it was massive for me being a local lad.It was really significant in my life but you don’t realise the impact until later on and you think, oh yeah, that was good and I enjoyed that. And as you as your career progresses, you learn to manage your nerves. You turn them into energy more than nerves.”
Playing in the largely semi-professional game of rugby league at the time, Ian Blease also had to juggle his sporting career with a job in construction. This balance has instilled in him the desire to ensure that modern players, who themselves have to seek a career after their playing career finishes, look after themselves:
“ I had an apprenticeship at the start, so I knew I was going to have a career in construction and asset management, which is what I ended up doing. It was challenging to manage between work and training. We used to train Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, playing at weekends all the time. We used obviously work all day and then go to train at night, which was pretty difficult. You’d get 4 to 5 weeks off in a year pre-season and then you’d be back at it again. And I did that for ten, 12 years at Salford, which in the end probably tells on your mental as well as physically
You drove in from work, and within 20 minutes you’d be on the training pitch. It was really tough. But there are player welfare coaches in the game now and I actually sit on the player welfare board for the RFL. But there was nothing like that back in the day. That’s what rugby was.”
Since his rugby career ended as a player, Ian Blease has found education key, something else he tries to instil in the current Salford players
“ I fell into it, one of my managers said to me after I’d finished playing, I really like what you’re doing in the business side, I’d like you to do some studying. I didn’t take to school very well as I was apprehensive about it. But the tutor said to me, you get out what you put in. And I really enjoyed it, I spent 5 years doing my first master’s and then over the last couple of years did my sporting directorship degree at Media City.”
“The educational side was really the lift that I needed. I realised I could go into leadership and management, which led to me eventually coming back into rugby years later as a players agent. We have a great relationship with the University of Salford at the moment. We get four master’s degrees every year to give to our staff and players.”
Throughout our PathFinders interview with Ian Blease, we discuss his career in detail, and the many physical and mental challenges along the way. We look at his life after sport and the successes he has achieved returning to the club in the boardroom.
As part of Morson’s Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) strategy, we’ve committed to planting a tree for every permanent placement we make as a business.
Plant a Tree for Every Placement is a new initiative for the Morson Group as we aim to achieve net zero by 2023 and offset our carbon emissions. This forms part of a larger strategy that we’ve been committed to for a number of years, involving cutting our emissions.
Gareth Morris, HSQE Director for the Morson Group, explains the initiative:
As part of our environmental commitment, we have continued our energy reduction activities actioned during previous years while adding further measures. This has included motion sensor LED lights, increasing the percentage of electric and hybrid vehicles, (which now account for 77% of our car fleet) and maintaining a modern commercial fleet with all vehicles less than four years old. We have also continued the use of Shell Fuel Cards, as well as transferring managed offices to renewable electricity as current contracts expire. This has been aided by continuing to issue quarterly HSQE bulletins to our entire workforce to encourage greener behaviours concerning energy reduction and recycling.
This has resulted in a more than 20% decrease in our electricity usage and a more than 28% decrease in our Scope 2 indirect emissions between 2020 and 2021. Throughout 2021, we offset over 400 tonnes of CO2 emissions that we created as a business.
Environmental, Social and Governance encapsulates the current corporate responsibility of organisations including the staffing sector. We have a responsibility not only to our staff and clients, but also our neighbours, community, and our environment. The future is about corporate responsibility and profit, doing one is no longer acceptable. Company boards direct the governance of an organisation. They have the power and influence to turn the ESG drumbeat into the heartbeat of the organisation. Strong governance is the hallmark of large organisations such as Morson. Good Governance at board level drives environmental and social responsibility throughout the organisation at all levels.
Find out more about Morson Group’s commitment to health, safety and the environment in the full article here
