Marc Paish celebrates 10 years at Aldercote

Marc Paish, our Technical Director, joined us at Aldercote in 2013. I caught up with him to find out what has changed in that time. His response was candid, true to our company culture.

“Aldercote has gone from being a being a general-purpose vehicle conversion company, with an interest in access platforms, to a dedicated access platform manufacturer”. For his first five years, Marc recalls, “the company seemed to be fighting a daily battle for survival. Since our focussed approach on access platforms, we are making serious in-roads into the UK market. This success has allowed us to invest in our site, production process and product range”.

“Today, we have a consolidated portfolio, with a wide range of platform options for a variety of van models and pickups. These access platforms are our most popular, but we’re not limited to vans and pickups, we also manufacture tracked crawler access platforms and custom vehicles too.”

Dave Dillon, Sales Director and one of the co-founders of the company commented, “It’s been a great journey over the last 10 years; with Marc’s knowledge and ideas, to his understanding of the company and the direction we are going. He came to us from being a good customer and is now a great business partner and friend.”

When asked what his greatest achievement to date was, Marc answered: “When I joined the company I developed our numerical engineering software, which has since been the cornerstone of our product development. We are always proud to demonstrate how it can quickly generate stability and overload data for an unlimited combination of platforms and vehicles.”

Conversation then moved to discuss future targets. Marc shared that we are now building a team of committed professionals and: “The next five years is about continuous improvement in everything we do. The aim is to become the UK’s leading manufacturer in the small-vehicle mounted platforms market, and then expand our focus onto exports.”

“I hope that in 5 years’ time, our team will number more than 100, and we shall be known as one of Hull’s manufacturing success stories,” he continued.

Finally, when asked what drew him to Aldercote in the first place, and what his motivation is? Marc replied:

“I feel incredibly lucky to be doing what I do. Paul and Dave [Co-founders] have been fantastic business partners. Their friendliness and family values are central to how we operate. Not many people help to build a significant manufacturing company from scratch, and it’s a privilege to be in this position. I am proud of our products, and of the fact that we are creating more and more quality jobs for our hometown.”

Congratulations, Marc! All the best to the next decade.

Interview by Christine Bettinson, Marketing Manager, Aldercote