Jack Mather
Page 44
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Jack Mather, the recently appointed md of Tankfreight Ltd, the NFC holding company which specializes in bulk haulage, has approached the top of his profession by a new route. Whereas most transport managing directdrs — some might say too many — are financial men or operational men — some might say not enough — Jack Mather is neither. He began his transport life as a personnel man.
After graduating at Manchester University with a BA, his,studies for his MA took him to first-line supervisors in large group companies like Oldham Batteries, Proctor and Gamble, Birds Eye Foods and Mullard, where he was eventually employed as a trainee personnel officer.
However, for the first year at Mul la rd he was an assembly line foreman in charge of 30 women, and he learned a lot. He became the company's personnel and training officer, gaining his first taste of trade union negotiations. Still within the Philips group, he moved to its transport and distribution company, London Carriers. This was his first transport post.
After nine years service with Philips, he moved to Convoys Ltd where he encountered transport, engineering, warehousing and dock work in personnel matters. When he saw a docker shaping up physically to his trade union official, Jack confessed that he wondered what his fate. might be if that was how the docker treated his brother!
He didn't wait to find out because the followng year Len Payne took him to BRSL's staffing department and eventually appointed him assistant md, a position he also held under the present md, Peter Thompson.
In 1972, Jack was appointed md of his first operating company, Southern BRS Ltd. As a BRS man, Jack adopted an expansionist policy, and I suspect that it was this that led to his latest appointment because Tank-freig ht has been designed to meet an expanding market and Jack will continue on the course set by his predecessor, Brian McGillvary.