About

Career Bio: John Williams

(British Telecom Apprentice to Manor Electronic Security 'CEO' in just 39 years)

 

John started his career as a technician apprentice for British Telecom in East London, (UK), in 1983.

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Following the completion of his apprenticeship and having worked his way up to the role of Technical Officer, he left BT for greener pastures (apparently) in 1988 and worked in a non-technical, construction field, learning in around 9 months that his passion was elsewhere; as a technician, chasing faults, solutions and generally 'making electronic stuff work'. 

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In May 1989, John joined Telecom Security. The company was a fairly recent start up, majority owned by British Telecom. Five years later, having worked through the ranks of installer, service technician, senior technician and technical manager, he found himself in the role of field manager with a team of around 12 technicians, servicing approximately 8,000, mostly residential, intruder alarm clients across a large region of the UK. During his 7 years at Telecom Security, John gained a great deal of experience engaging with all kinds of customers, who ranged from aristocrats in stately homes, (even an actual castle once), to tower block residents in the city of London, as well as meeting a few celebrities in their homes, from time to time.

 

In 1996, when ADT acquired Telecom Security, John left the company to join the outgoing Telecom CEO in another start up venture named Advanced Visual Security (AVS). CCTV was becoming much more commercially viable with a growing share of electronic security and AVS started well. During this time, reverting to his preferred role on the tools, John worked on the oldest building of his career, the 12th century "Temple Manor" in Kent.

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Unfortunately, AVS sales declined over the following months as the UK economy faltered in the second half of the 90's and, in 1998, AVS was unable to continue.

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One day, one phone call and one interview later, John was employed by CCTV specialist 'Capital Vision' (whose founder incidentally, has the claim to fame of installing the first ever commercial CCTV camera in England, in the original Dartford  Tunnel under the River Thames, in the 1960's). Capital Vision's client base was an eclectic roll call of major blue chip companies with an appetite for near broadcast quality CCTV systems. BP, Shell, Glaxo Smithkline, London City Corporation, to name but a few; meaning visits to oil refineries, chemical plants and power stations happened on a daily basis. The regular pursuit of video, data and cable faults across vast industrial sites, with an oscilloscope and TDR, really got John's techy motor running.

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He does report however, that his favourite two jobs with Capital Vision were installing the camera system on the world's first 10 loop roller coaster, 'Colossus', at Thorpe Park and a full upgrade of CCTV cameras over the whole of Tower Bridge in London.

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Apparently, jagging the first ride on the rollercoaster was pretty special, even if it took several hours to recover after the 30 inversions endured during the three laps he did! Of the Tower Bridge project, John felt it a real privilege to spend a couple of weeks getting paid to explore the innards of such a famous monument. 

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A longing for open space took John and his young family to English village life in the beautiful county of Norfolk in 2003. An end to the big commute back to London came within months with a move to local company 'CTS Security'. Some 18months later, withdrawal from the large scale, industrial projects led John to move to Romec (Royal Mail Engineering Corp - A kind of historical sister company to British Telecom from the days when the General Post Office looked after the telephone network). The lure for the move was a rather prestigious role, solely maintaining the very high end CCTV systems deployed by Marks & Spencer at that time.

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Almost running solo, handling all logistics, repairs and quoting, it was a refreshing challenge for John. However, as the UK economy started to quake once again, this time due to the early rumblings of the global financial crisis, M & S slashed their maintenance spend greatly changing the dynamics of the role. Another opportunity would need to be found.

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In 2006, John was offered the opportunity to join Gratte Brothers Security Management (GBSM), one of the largest independent companies in the UK. Mainly deployed as a service technician and providing reactive maintenance of the bespoke CCTV systems deployed in Tesco supermarkets throughout the South East and Midlands.

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There were also occasional forays into the City to look after some great sites such as the Guildhall of London and an awesome snagging and commissioning project at Aviva's Headquarters in Norwich. GBSM is a wonderful employer and demands of the role suited John perfectly....there was, however a huge change looming!

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Having had an inspiring trip to Australia in 2006-7 to catch up with his three sisters and parents, John and his wife soon decided to join the rest of the Williams clan and migrate to Australia, Cairns specifically. The GFC was in full swing by the time the move became real in early 2009 and, having hoped to be able to take some time out to acclimatise to the culture as well as the tropics, John was compelled to jump straight into the workforce. Fresh back from an Open Cablers Course in Townsville and having followed a Cabling Queensland van up Mulgrave Road into Cairns, he called the company and spoke with Dave Cox. By chance, Dave was just about to start a DSX access control project at Port Douglas Marina and could use some extra experience in electronic security; and Port Douglas was, of course, an awesome place to start work in Australia.

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All went well and Dave kept John on after the project; as much of the work that followed was data and comm's based, it was certainly great for John to have the opportunity to revisit his telecommunications background, albeit in a different  technological era. The grounding provided by the BT apprenticeship had once again proved its worth. The two years with Dave, Paul and Ben went very quickly; especially with the last six months or so being mixed between technical site work and completing estimates and tenders.  

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In June of 2011, the opportunity to ply his trade in mainstream security electronics led John to take up an offer to join the great team at Intelligent Surveillance Group (ISG). Although hired as a technician, John's experience of quoting and tendering was soon deployed as he became the full time estimator. At 11 years, this role turned out to be the longest John has ever held. The work was predominantly for Local, State and Federal Government customers, including Australian Border Force, Queensland Police, Seaports, Airports, Schools and commercial projects such as Cairns Aquarium and Mount Sheridan Plaza. He relished the design aspect of the role which was more than sufficient to satisfy his desire for creative problem solving. 

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Having been presented with opportunity to get involved, hands on, with some active projects when ISG closed its doors, John found, that not only was he able to pick up and handle the tools quite quickly, his enthusiasm for the work had not diminished at all. The added challenge of managing his own business for the very first time makes this an exciting time for him...and he very much looks forward to discussing with you how he can deliver the many benefits that electronic security and video surveillance can provide.

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