John Campton
Key Accounts Manager at Premier Group
How has your company engaged with young people and the community to improve the image of manufacturing
Within the local community The Premier Group (TPG) supports a number of deserving charitable organisations, including Zoë’s Place Coventry which offers palliative, respite and terminal care for babies/infants aged from birth to five years old. We are also the lead sponsor of the Coventry Charity Cup which combines competitive football with the raising of money in aid of local charities and social initiatives.
What have you personally contributed to help improve the image of manufacturing?
Make it in Great Britain is my first personal activity in the field of youth engagement with manufacturing. When the opportunity came along to be an Industry Champion for Make it in Great Britain, I jumped at it as gave me the chance to promote engineering, an industry which I am extremely proud to be a part of and one with a proud history in this country.
Make it in Great Britain provides a great platform from which to promote the quality and reputation of British engineering which, despite some tough times in recent years, remains the envy of the world and is now beginning to flourish once again. As a former engineering apprentice myself, I gained valuable skills and experience ‘on the job’ whilst earning a living – there is no better way to start working life in manufacturing.
What more needs to be done?
I am now the Key Account Manager for The Premier Group (TPG), a Coventry based company which has been supporting apprentices as part of its workforce since its inception almost 20 years ago. We currently have 16 apprentices at TPG and I want to encourage more stakeholders in the manufacturing sector to actively participate in apprenticeship schemes.
The presence of apprentices as integral members of our team enables us to maintain a workforce with a skills base that keeps pace with developments in technology, which in turn helps us to remain competitive and innovative in our core sectors whilst equipping us with the ability to build on success to date through diversification.
