We meet Danny Bratcher TMIET in the next of our 'My Engineering Career' blog series. Danny is a Senior High Voltage Electrical Engineer working at a large international airport in the UK. Danny tells us about how he was encouraged into a career in engineering and the value of Mentors:

Good to meet you, let me tell you about myself

Greetings and thank you for taking the time to read my blog detailing my career so far as an electrical engineer. My name is Danny Bratcher. Currently, I am the Senior High Voltage Electrical Engineer working for a large international airport in the UK.

I started my career as an Electrical Engineer in 1992 when, out of over 80 candidates, I was successful in obtaining a 5-year electrical installation apprenticeship with a small electrical contractor based in Southampton.

Once I finished my apprenticeship, I worked across the UK on various self-employed contracts for about nine months.  At the end of that, I began a role as a night shift electrician at the airport (where I still work to this day) working for a subcontractor on the framework contract.

I progressed through a variety of roles over the years - from a JIB Electrician to Approved Electrician to Site Technician. In 2004, I moved into management roles in 2004, as night shift supervisor alongside the night shift manager with over 40 direct reports.

In 2007 I moved away from my core engineering skill and became a Terminal Building Maintenance Manager looking after the full Facility management for the building. Between 2009 and 2014, I worked as an electrical contracts manager overseeing a number of projects, including the start of the carbon reduction programs across the whole airport.

In 2014 I made the move from contractor to client and worked as the Engineering Operations Manager in several business units across the Airport. This began at one of the oldest terminals, then moved to the newest terminal, and in 2017, moved across to look after the whole Airport Estate (excluding Terminal buildings). This consists of hundreds of buildings and includes the grounds maintenance and upkeep.

During Covid, I ran the Water Services Business unit with hundreds of kilometres of various types of pipe work (Potable, Foul, Storm, Fire Main) pumps, chambers, lagoons, pollution control systems and more.

And now to bring it up to date - in 2021 I secured the role I am currently in, returning to my core engineering skill set as an electrical engineer. At this point, I began to focus on my professional registration journey. As I write this, I will have my IEng interview in three weeks’ time and will then look to obtain the CEng professional accreditation.

In my role, I am one of the Subject Matter Experts on the High Voltage and Low Voltage electrical systems. This work, like so many of you will also experience, is complex.  It spans not only the technical day to day tactical aspects of electrical engineering, but is also heavily focused on future energy strategy works across our large private High Voltage network.

An important part of my work is being involved with fault investigations, technical electrical assurance, writing electrical standards and conducting studies on things like EMF and Space Weather impacts; The assurance activates I undertake  ensure the people who work on our High Voltage and Low Voltage network are safe and comply with our Safe System of Work (SSOW) - as well as the other relevant safety and best practices being adhered to. These are conducted across the subcontracted and directly employed companies and staff that work on our systems.

Picking and choosing my future

My whole family are, and have been, in the construction industry for over 80 years. My Grandad (who passed away at the age of 92, last year) owned his own formwork (shuttering) business. My dad and all my uncles were all shuttering carpenters working for him. Many major road bridges across the country, from bridges on the M3, M52, A34 and large sewage farms were built by members of my family.

As a child (and long before the Health and Safety at Work Act was taken seriously), I would go to work on site at weekends and during half terms with my Dad or Grandad and in my later teenage years, I would help out by striking the shutters, cleaning the sites and making breakfast for the teams in the on-site.

Naturally, when I went to leave School and my Dad asked what I was going to do, I told him “I am going to be a shuttering carpenter, like you”. Without hesitation, and as quick as I had said it, he replied, “No you’re not! it’s a nasty job, working in all weathers, working away from home, dirty and brutal on the body.” Again, this conversation took place when Health & Safety was a thing that (generally speaking) was not taken as seriously by businesses as it should have been and indeed as it is now in 2024.

My Dad suggested that if I was planning on going into the construction industry that I should obtain an apprenticeship as a plumber or electrician - because these trades work by-and-large in cleaner and drier conditions on site. So, I had some options, and I chose to look for an apprenticeship as an electrician, based solely on the fact that I didn’t like the smell of plumbing flux! What a way to choose a career path.

I have a slight dyslexia and through school struggled with English. I was good at Maths and Science, and I enjoyed these subjects. In some respects, I suffered as a result of the 1980’s education system, and how the teaching methods were laid out.

However, my teachers where nothing but encouraging throughout my school years. I can thank them for never saying that I couldn’t do anything, but that if I wanted to achieve set goals, I needed to put the effort in myself.

This approach, coupled with my own family’s tradition of hard work, has driven my whole professional life over the past 30-plus years. Work hard, put in the effort, no one owes you anything and if you want something you have the ability to aim for it and achieve most things you set your eyes on.

Sleuthing and solving

Over the past 30-plus years I have worked on a vast number of projects and contracts, all of which come with their own challenges. These have varied from minor, small programme hiccups to major life changing events that stay with you and shape how you operate and approach tasks in the future.

I get a great satisfaction carrying out and investigating faults or incidents that occur from time to time. Why? Because they give you the opportunity to dig into the detail of the issue and focus in on reviewing regulations, standards, and technical publications. Once you have found the root cause or cause’s, you can then act on it to help ensure the same issue doesn’t happen again - you can keep people safe and systems operating as they should.

In one incident I investigated, it was at first thought restricted earth fault current transformers may have been incorrectly manufactured over 10 years earlier, leading them to be installed incorrectly.

Through detailed investigation I was able to obtain the manufacturers information from stored documents.  I contacted the manufacturer, a small family run business, who were more than happy to share the original commissioning test results - and the sheet including the signature of the engineer who carried out the tests prior to despatching the product. This led to the understanding that there had been an error with the onsite commissioning and installation of the products in question. 

Of course, one of the most challenging aspects of incident investigation is finding the evidence, documents, concessions to agreed processes or products. The manufacturer’s information, original design and commissioning records are vital and rely on various factors including a firm system of record keeping within any business. This can vary from basic document storage in hard copies - ideal for small sole traders - ranging up to digital easy-to-use data management platforms and systems with a natural flow to the asset grouping and compartmentation, within larger companies.  

Gotta keep up

In 2021, I returned to a single engineering discipline. Next, I began focusing on my professional registration journey, obtaining IET registration and attending their great one-day online professional registration training, which I found on the IET website. As I write this blog, I will have my IEng interview in 3 weeks’ time and will then look to obtain the CEng professional accreditation.

Centred, as I now am, purely on electrical systems, I am progressing with a project to enhance our High Voltage systems resilience and redundancy while working towards our net zero commitments and aspirations. This project involves complex discussions, review, and research into what will best suit the business and our customers for the next 50 plus years.

To achieve this requires not only a strong technical understanding, but the ability to communicate across all levels, to ensure the message I am conveying can reach its various target audiences, from technicians through stakeholders to directors and key decision makers.  

To ensure that we provide the best solution for the business, I took the opportunity to attend the IET Net Zero conference in Glasgow in 2023. There, I networked with transmission experts and industry trail blazers to find out what new technologies are in development. Beside that, I was also one of the guest speakers on a panel discussion for ground to air zero carbon futures.  

Listen to what they tell you

When we traditionally think about a mentor, I think most people will see these as people that actively go out of their way to assist in your personal development. Be that your line manager, an official coach or teacher. It must be said, the value of how we interact around others and how we project our shadows on to others cannot be understated as we, in some ways, are all mentors to each other. 

Over many years in the engineering industry, I have changed my engineering and management styles many times. When I was a young engineer, and also in my first few line management roles, I can say that I was passionate, focused on doing the right thing for colleagues that worked for me - as well as our customers.

However, during this early part of my career, I had the wrong type of mentors around me which drove my style to be, at times, overly passionate - which sometimes did not lead me to achieve the goals I set out to achieve. This valuable, steep learning curve helped shaped the engineer and manager I am today.

Looking around at good examples of how to present yourself and best put over your views on the best solution for a project or engineering problem is massively important.

Over the years, I have sought raw, honest feedback from colleagues and peers and listened to what they have had to say.  It has helped me make incremental changes to habits and delivery styles which I feel has benefited me and others around me greatly.

Never underestimate the power of listening and acting on feedback. Do not take it personally when things you may see as a strength are described by others as an area to improve on or change in some cases.

Listen. Listen to what people tell you and what they also may be trying to say even if they are not clear, is both beneficial when mentoring and networking either knowingly or not . I like to think of myself as a good networker, and the key to this success over the years for me is being interested in what people are telling you and where you can help them out if it is appropriate to do so , but try not to say yes to every request. Like any relationship in your personal life, you get out what you put in.

And always be kind. You may never know the impact you have on others both positive and negative.  

…and another thing

As a final thought, I am intrigued by the challenges that face the transmission and distributors on high voltage networks with the ever-increasing ramp up to net zero and decarbonisation.

A lot of these challenges will involve the increased use of electrical networks at high and low voltages. I am looking forward to being a very small part of overcoming those challenges in the years to come.

I firmly believe, and discussed this in forums and conferences, that we not only need to focus on the skills and resources of bringing people into engineering and STEM careers, but we must also focus and invest in the civil front-line workforce. The decarbonisation of the planet will involve so much groundwork, something that will not be achievable if we do not have the people coming into this field.

It's right that we have an education system that encourages younger generations to seek continued learning in colleges and universities.  That said, we also need to ensure these other career paths for all construction trades are attractive for people to apply for them, and where their safety and welfare is catered for.

Want to share your own Career journey with the EngX Community? Contact the Editorial team via community-online@ietengx.org and we'll be in touch! 

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