Shaun Morris attended Chesterfield College twice at different stages of his career

Why did you come to Chesterfield College?

“When I was a young boy, I was doing work on the side to earn pocket money whilst I was at school being a plasterer’s mate for my uncle. Most of my family was in the building trade in some way shape or form. It was a natural progression for me when I left school to join Chesterfield College in building and bricklaying. It was a wonderful time making those brick walls, decorative brick walls, and English brick walls, it was such a great time. On my course, everybody just wanted to crack on. Everyone wanted their qualifications and to then move on to an apprenticeship. I went to work with my cousin after college and was self-employed through the 80s. Then the recession hit in the 80s and my career took a nose dive, so I needed to find another job. I met a young man in a place called Matchless Products. They used to can custard powder and chocolate and stuff like that. I went for an interview, bearing in mind I’ve just qualified from college with my City and Guilds s in Bricklaying. I got told I was overqualified but they had got an idea for me. He told me that one of his subsidiary firms called Derby Chilled Foods, was looking for an engineer to operate the sandwich machines. He asked me if I was willing to go back to college to study Maintenance and Mechanical properties. Lots of change, lots of fun and two visits to college.

Is there anything that you’ve learned at college that you still use now?

I’ve done various jobs in engineering. I’ve even worked at Cadburys, Trevor Basset before it went. The major jump for me was when I got a position in Burton Upon Trent for Vortis Limited. Vortis are an Italian ventilation company, the number one in Italy. I started there as a technical assistant. So with that, I needed to know about building engineering platforms. How is a house built and where will the ventilation systems go? How they will breathe through the fabric of the building? My building and engineering qualifications were both prominent in my new role. Then they ended up doing designs for private homes. I’d send them over to their office and the regional offices. From that, I got headhunted to go work for an energy and specific ventilation company called Veto. They were based in Holland, so at that point, I worked for two multinationals. I didn’t work in the technical office then, I was then a regional business development manager who ran the north and a couple of guys. That was pretty fun and there were trips over to Holland. The intimate thing that runs through everything is building and engineering.

What are you doing now?

I work for a facilities management company. I wanted to have a change. I now work for a company called CPL based in Birmingham as a sales manager. I work the North East and South West, pointing facilities management to businesses, anything from BBQ, The Coop, all the way down to solicitors and small companies that that stuff like that. I go to seminars and I do presentations for everything within what I’m doing at CPL, which is facilities management and also building and engineering. We do the fabric of the building, we do the plumbing, the electrical, and the installation. So every part of my career goes back to two things, building and engineering. The knowledge I gain is still getting built on from Chesterfield College.

Getting back in touch with Chesterfield College.

I am part of the east midlands Chamber of Commerce. I wanted to join the Chamber because it’s got a lot of businesses that are members. One of the exhibitors at one of the events was Chesterfield College, so I went over to say hello and see if there was anyway our business could work with them.

Career advice for those choosing their course.

The main thing I would say to your students is, you can sign up for a course and say you are at college but you need to want to do it and want to learn. You can get anywhere you want to go as long as you want to do it.”