60 second interview: Alan Hawkins

How did you get started in manufacturing? Well I'm one of those people you'd probably call a technologist rather than an engineer. My background is in academia rather than industry. However, when it came down to it, I probably wasn't quite good enough to become a lecturer, so it was really a case of looking for a role in industry and I found myself here. That was 32 years ago and I'm still here. What does your role involve? I'm technical manager, so that means I have a technical input on pretty much all the products. We do a lot of fire-resistant glass for various applications and a fair amount of explosion-resistant glass as well, so those are always interesting projects, although by their nature, I'm not sure how much I can tell you about them! What are some of the more interesting projects that you've worked on over the years? As I say, there are a lot I can't talk about, but some of the most interesting ones I've been involved in lately would probably be the Olympic Velodrome, which has this amazing glass roof that we've installed. There was also once a project where we installed a lot of fire-resistant glass on a boat – that was interesting. And we also recently were involved in a very interesting project at Edinburgh's Waverley Station. Has the industry changed a great deal since you joined it? The glass industry's funny in that, technically, a lot of the products haven't changed a great deal over the years, but the way in which we make and handle them has. In fact, probably the biggest change I've seen has been in the way the products are handled. We produce glass in five-tonne batches and, because it's so brittle, the best way to handle that for years was manually lifting it. However, since automated handling has taken over, it's hard to get across just how much it's changed things. I suppose that the easiest way is to point out that, when I joined, there were 145 people working here and now there are just 46. I would say the majority of that is down to automatic handling. What are the big issues facing your industry at the moment? Well Government cuts are a big issue for us at the moment, since so much of what we do is for the public sector. However, in a larger sense we, like everyone, are under increasing pressure to be energy efficient and to work in a way that is more environmentally friendly. Obviously, glassmaking is a fairly energy-intensive process, so this is quite a challenge for us. Going forward, I think the issues will revolve around more efficient and environmentally-friendly products. So, for instance, it would seem inevitable that photovoltaic glass that actually generates energy from the sunlight that passes through it will be a product of the future. I'm not sure if I'll be around to see it, unfortunately, but it's something that seems almost certain to happen. What still excites you about your role? I've always liked working in an industry where you get to see the end results of all your hard work. That's always been a very satisfying thing for me. Unfortunately, I'm 62 now, so I'm getting a bit old to be doing the other part of the job that I love, which is walking about on roofs of buildings or going up on cherry pickers to help advise on projects. It's childish, but being able to get out and about and see the thing you're working on has always appealed to me. It's certainly better than being at a desk in front of a computer screen.