Congratulations to Andrew Bright, European Production Manager – Dry & Special Mortar, as he celebrates his 40 years long service with our company on 27^th February.

Andy joined RMC on 28^th May 1979 working in the Durox Block Lab for Concrete products. He left RMC in 1983 to join a pharmaceutical company but returned in 1984 as a Technical Assistant for Durox Blocks.

Then, in 1987 Andy joined RMC Mortars as an Area Technical Manager for the London area. After his Manager left the company in 1990 Andy was promoted to Technical Manager for the South of the UK covering Peterborough to Bournemouth – a huge patch.

In 1992, due to financial and recessionary pressures, the roles of Operations and Technical were merged and he became an OPTEC alongside John Shill, who he worked with for four years, at which point in 1996 the Mortar Company was absorbed into the Readymix business. Andy was asked to work for the legends who are Bev Brown and Steve Crompton, out of initially the old group Head Office at Feltham (South London), and then later Thorpe the new IHQ. In 1999, Andy began working on the Dry Silo Mortar project which saw him team up with Neil Benningfield and others, developing the company’s first plant and entry to the DSM market from Dove Holes. It was a challenging start, utilising all limestone fines, which despite much perseverance and effort was changed to a soft sand / limestone mix a couple of years later, ultimately producing the fine product we have now.

In 2012 Andy, along with Mark Norton and Steve Crompton, persuaded Chris Lees to spend £500,000 on a worn out and mothballed Asphalt plant (the Via Nova). The idea was to produce dry Aggregates in silos for Cement to be added later, on site in London, for the Crossrail project (the largest Infrastructure Project in Europe at the time). This, unfortunately, didn’t work out for the contractor and we were left, through no fault of anyone, with no product to make and sell. So once again, Andy set about trying to innovate and produced a sprayed Concrete product in silos. It took another two years to get this concept to market but the Sprayed Concrete business we have today is the legacy.

Over the last 20 years Andy has become ‘Mr DSM’ in the UK with a wealth of knowledge – without him the business would not be where it is today.

Dirk Schulze, Director Mortars Europe, sent the following message to Andy: “40 years is an incredible achievement, and we wish you all the best in the years to come. I would personally like to thank Andy for his hard work, dedication and commitment to our company over the years. Thank you and many congratulations on achieving this special milestone!”