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Gordon East
• Gordon East is so far removed from the popular conception of a local government officer that it is difficult at first when meeting him to accept that he has been a civic employee for most of his working life. He abounds with energy. and has a fertile brain which brings a commercial approach to all that he does.
Trained at Vauxhall Motors and at one time a mechanical engineer of Coventry Corporation, Gordon East is now the transport officer to the London Borough of Greenwich. His approach to his job is that although the authority does not exist to make a profit there is no good reason why it should not run on sound economic grounds. His commercial thinking has been introduced to the administration of his transport department where he has responsibility for 280 vehicles and 322 items of civil engineering and agricultural plant. This surely must be considered a large fleet by any standards.
As a professional transport man, he is concerned that so many local authorities leave the running of their transport to men who are not qualified in a transport sense. He estimates that there are fewer than 100 qualified transport men in charge of local authority fleets.
In September 1970 with Dick -Ball of Wandsworth and .Bill Simpson of Kensington he called a meeting of the 27 transport officers in the London boroughs. That saw the formation of the Association of Municipal Transport Officers. Today there are 67 members of AMTO drawn from most of the large towns between Glasgow and Exeter.
Gordon East is horrified at any suggestion that the Association should become an examining body. -There are already. plenty of people setting standards and examinations" he said. He emphasized that AMTO's main function was to give its members the opportunity to discuss specific local government problems with each other, and he is devoting much of his leisure time to the establishment of branches around the country.
Gordon East reckons that Greenwich Council is the most progressive local authority in the country. always open to new ideas and always ready to give an officer "his head". With his enthusiasm for his job he needs just such an employer. He is not the kind of person who would take kindly to restriction.
His background in transport is basically engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer and a member of both the I RTE and the "M eche niGals". During his leisure time when he is not on AMTO business or relaxing with his wife and two children in his home at Hayes, Gordon pays not infrequent visits to Shooter's Hill Golf Club, I.S.