Tom studied electronic engineering at Nottingham University.  On finishing University, like a lot of people Tom signed up with a number of employment agencies. He was after a job in radio or music production as a technical engineer.

Tom started work at Gee Broadcast systems in 1998.  He stayed with them for two and a half years and was fortunate enough to go abroad with them to trade fairs which was fun, but more importantly learnt in a very small company how to apply electronics to broadcast systems and installations.  "What I loved and still love now, is the pace at which technology changes and has to be implemented in the broadcast industry.  My employers value my sense of urgency and priority and this relationship translates well to economic gain for the company.  My time at Gee (a strong sales environment) taught me that.  I see the engineering department as a service to the rest of the company and run it as such.

Working in a small company has pros and cons.  The training is very much on the job, however there is scope to do a wide variety of tasks.  This is what I most enjoy - one minute I will be designing and putting together a proposal for a new video editing suite, the next I will be faultfinding a circuit board on broken equipment, the next designing the back end of a web video streaming server. Today’s broadcast engineers must have very good IT skills as well as traditional electronics."

After Gee Broadcast Tom went to Australia via Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Bali. 

In Australia Tom worked with a firm called Quinto that was similar to Gee Broadcast as they too were resellers of Broadcast equipment. "I’d met the manager at a trade show in Amsterdam, and they needed someone to cover an employee while on extended leave so I was very lucky with the timing – it wasn’t planned!  One of the products they sold was for use in subtitling systems.  The next job I got was for a subtitling firm supporting the same equipment, which has probably been one of my most interesting jobs; at the Australian Caption Centre. Subtitling was an area of broadcasting that I wasn’t really aware of and really enjoyed learning. Both jobs were three month contracts – that is the maximum on a visa for a contract over there. 

I met my (now) wife in Sydney and we travelled trough South America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil for three months before arriving back in the UK in June 2002."

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Tom joined the IEE (now the Institution of Engineering and Technology) in 1997 and has been a member ever since.  "I am a full member and feel that I should apply for CEng. I want to apply not because it will necessarily benefit my career but for personal achievement.  It is unlikely that it would be noticed in the industry I work in.  Why now?  Because I have seven years experience and feel that I have enough to offer.

I enjoy being a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. I value the magazines and always read them to broaden myself. This is important as technology from one industry can be useful in another.  There is no point in reinventing something. In addition, the journals, although related to my industry, help to broaden my engineering mind.

The services available to members are also very helpful and I have taken advantage of them. I have been to a number of seminars which I have found invaluable. They have ranged from learning about MPEG2 and new broadcast systems to networking standards and I have also done a residential course in New Television Standards and Systems.  I have always valued these courses and the forums they provide."

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