Category: News

O’Brien have welcomed our new engineer Lewis onto the team.

Lewis has started his first week here at O’Brien and is looking forward to integrating into the team and gaining further experience out on our project sites.

We look forward to seeing Lewis progress within the company and gain the additional experience he wants to develop his skills and career.

O’Brien value the skills and expertise of all of our staff, where there are no limits or boundaries in terms of progression within the company and we encourage our staff to take a proactive approach to their job, and put themselves forward for training that will develop their skills and advance their career.​

Lewis gave us some background on how where he trained before joining the company:

“I completed an 18 month civil engineering level 3 and NVQ with Learning Skills Partnership and then progressed on to a 2 and a half year course to complete my HNC in site engineering at the Leeds College of Building.  I completed my training a long side full time work, allowing me to transfer the knowledge from the classroom straight to site.

I’m looking forward to working in a fast paced environment at O’Brien’s, hopefully get onto some large projects as I look to develop my engineering skills further. I felt that I’d get this exposure at O’Brien’s making it the right move for myself.”

Welcome on board Lewis!

“We are committed to continued investment in our people, plant and technology to ensure we play our part in reducing embodied carbon across all of our projects”.

Vicki O’Brien

With over fifty years of history delivering civil engineering and construction across all sectors of the Built Environment, O’Brien Contractors have always shown a commitment to their Corporate Social Responsibility and the Environment.

Vicki O’Brien is a third generation O’Brien and has worked in the family business for nearly twelve years. As a Net Zero Champion, Vicki will be responsible for setting net zero carbon targets and defining the businesses strategy to de-carbonise future operations.

Vicki commented “Protecting our Environment and climate change represents some of the greatest challenges we face today in Construction. At O’Brien Contractors Limited, we understand the behavioural change needed across our Industry.

We are committed to continued investment in our people, plant and technology to ensure we play our part in reducing embodied carbon across all of our projects”. Vicki continued, “I am excited to Champion our approach to Net Zero Carbon and establish a Strategy with meaningful targets and clear policies which will help us manage and report on our progress”.

Well we have had a great BBQ in our beautiful yard today and the weather was very very kind!

As part of our charity drive to raise £15k for O’Brien Charitable Trust, we had one of our new monthly theme days (always involves food), and this month it was a BBQ.  Lovely local produce from the farm in the form of burgers, sausages, kebabs and chops with a selection of drinks.  All those attending gave a minimum £10 donation and we were also joined by some of our lovely suppliers.

Chef for the day was our fabulous QS Neels Saayman who is legendry on the Grill (he loves it)!

Many thanks to our suppliers who came today, it was great to see you all and we hope you enjoyed yourselves!  Thank you for supporting the charity, including those that couldn’t make it today, supporting us as you always do, raising funds for the O’Brien Trust charity.

Take a look at our charity page to see what we have been up to!

https://trust.obriencontractors.co.uk/friday-charity-bbq-in-the-yard-success/

O’Brien have completed our upgrade to the CHAS Premium Plus standard, assuring our clients and prospective clients that we have the knowledge, skills experience and training needed to manage a wide range of risks on our projects.

Many clients are now looking to companies, to have the higher levels of accreditation providing reassurance that businesses are run safely and efficiently.  As a responsible and HSEQ conscious company we felt therefore it was essential that we upgraded our accreditation level accordingly.

As well as our CHAS upgrade we have also passed our Achilles Building Confidence external audit this month.

O’Brien are proud to maintain several accreditations and memberships which proves that our company meets or exceeds minimum quality standards.

Accreditations include:

• CHAS
• Achilles Building Confidence
• Constructionline
• FIH (International Federation of Hockey) Certified Field Builder
• ISO9001
• ISO14001
• ISO45001

Memberships

• SAPCA
• British Safety Council
• RoSPA
• RoSPA Gold Award (7 consecutive years)
• Cyber Essentials
• Concrete Society
• Construction Plant Hire Association

Following on from works carried out earlier in 2020, O’Brien were engaged to carry out enabling works for a new depot on a portion of the site which was situated adjacent to the A49 in Ludlow.

With the site sitting alongside an existing live business and retail park along with Ludlow’s main park and ride facility it was imperative that the works were carried out in a way that did not disrupt the normal operations of our neighbours.

Works carried out on site included cut and fill earthworks to development plateaus, foul and surface water drainage, incoming service provision along with full construction of a new access road to provide permanent and construction access for the new depot. The earthworks presented a significant challenge with works carried out during January and February to meet the clients programme. These months are usually too wet for earthworks but using our extensive experience we provided a soil stabilisation solution that allowed works to be completed as required and the import of aggregates significantly reduced which provided cost and environmental benefits to the scheme.

The works commenced in December 2020 on a 16 week programme of works and have recently been completed.

O’Brien’s previous completed works on the Ludlow site earlier in 2020 were enabling works for a new housing development,  including drainage and attenuation ponds. See full details of previous works carried out:  O’Brien Development Site at Ludlow Progressing Well! – O’Brien Contractors (obriencontractors.co.uk)

Congratulations to our site operative Scott Constable, who has won our 1st Quarter Employee Outstanding Contribution Award for  January – March 2021.

Scott was nominated by his Project Manager Guy Baker and Tim Murphy Site Manager who said: “We nominated Scott for his willingness and versatility at our Barry Callebaut site, which has enabled the project to run smoothly.  He has also formed good working relationships with the client and sub-contractors that has benefited the project.”

Scott was presented with an award certificate and a £500 bonus in recognition of his outstanding contribution.

O’Brien Values Skills and Dedication of our Site Teams

In recognition of this, we have for many years run the ‘Employee Outstanding Achievement Award’. The award goes to a member of one of our site teams each quarter to coincide with our quarterly newsletter.

Project Managers nominate the operative that they think has gone above and beyond for the previous quarter and the candidate with the most recommendations wins the award. In recognition of their outstanding contribution, the winner gets a £500 cheque and a certificate in recognition of their hard work.

https://trust.obriencontractors.co.uk/five-supercar-thrill-with-high-speed-passenger-ride-voucher-raffle/

Tom has worked for O’Brien’s for 5 years and has been working towards his goal of becoming an accountant, undertaking an exam every 3 months for a period of studies spanning 3 years. Tom undertook evening studies whilst working full time, with the support of the finance team to achieve his goal and is currently in the final stages of documenting his record of experience to submit to CIMA, in order to obtain associate status, having recently passed his final examination.

O’Brien’s are massively proud of Tom’s hard work and his achievement to qualify as an accountant, having managed to achieve first time passes in all of his final year examinations.

Tom is now trying to decide what to do with all that spare time he has, now he has completed his studies!

Tom said of his achievement

“I’m pleased to confirm that I’ve recently received confirmation on the passing of my Strategic Case Study examination and in doing so, have now completed all CIMA examinations.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone at O’Brien Contractors Ltd (past and present) for providing me with a platform, which has allowed me to grow in knowledge of both Accountancy and the Construction Industry.

I’m fairly proud to be the first employee within O’Brien’s 63 year trading history to qualify as an Accountant, with the company more traditionally funding commercial qualifications, such as Quantity Surveying and Engineering degrees.

Finally, I would like to say a massive thank you to those who have personally mentored me throughout my career to date. Your guidance, encouragement and support has not gone unnoticed and I will be forever grateful.”

Well done and Congratulations Tom,  from all of the O’Brien Team!

https://trust.obriencontractors.co.uk/five-supercar-thrill-with-high-speed-passenger-ride-voucher-raffle/

Executive Director Stuart is taking on the epic 1,009 mile cycling challenge over 14 days in June 2021 to raise money for 2 charities that the O’Brien Trust donate to every year.

Stuart chose Molly Ollie’s Wishes and Freddie’s Wish to dedicate as his two charities to support on this very arduous and personal challenge.

The Challenge!

To cycle from Land’s End following the south Cornish coast, riding over the wilds of Dartmoor, and over the Severn Bridge into Wales. Following the River Wye on the Welsh border through the stunning rural landscapes of Hereford and Shropshire.  Heading further north we discover the amazing Forest of Bowland then into the Lake District and cross the border into Scotland. Before long we’re passing through the Trossachs, Loch Lomond and Grampian Mountains to Inverness, then the experience wilderness of the Scottish Highlands en-route to our final destination John O’Groats. Distance 1009 miles, Ascent 55,310ft!

To donate to Stuart’s challenge, please visit the Just Giving link below:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/stuart-chamberlain3

Good Luck Stuart!!!

Mick O’Brien – Director Retires after 40 Years

After nearly forty years and having given virtually all of his working life to O’Brien Contractors, Mick O’Brian hung up his work boots and retired at the end of December 2020.

During his 40 years within the business brothers Mick and Peter O’Brien have enjoyed a longstanding and successful business relationship, to build one of the most recognised companies in the midlands, renowned for quality, professionalism and quality performance, growing the company from a £30k turnover in the early 1980’s to £30m turnover in recent years.

During his time as a Director at O’Brien Mick has seen many changes over the years, particularly with machine technology which Mick embraced, having worked from the ground up whilst the business was growing in the early days.

Mick headed up the plant department and ours Sports Division.  Mick has always had a passion for machinery and plant and ensured that the company has always been at the forefront with new machine technology, forming a pioneering relationship with Spectra Precision in the 90’s who specialised in geospatial technology, testing and developing machine automation on Dozers at a time when Spectra Precision were the only company worldwide to develop such systems. We were the first company in Europe to trial this system, which Mick embraced and during the last twenty years, these systems have revolutionised the construction industry and particularly earthworks projects.

With Mick heading up the plant and machinery division of the business and being passionate about machine technology, today we run 6 dozers with machine control and twenty of our 35 excavators with machine control and very sophisticated earthworks software enabling advanced design and earthworks balancing calculations providing information at the touch of a keypad.

Mick will be missed from the business and has now gone to enjoy his well earned retirement to embrace his other passions outside of the construction industry.

Peter O’Brien commented

 “I would like to thank Mick personally for all the years together and the loyalty and honesty where we have being friends and brothers along with business colleagues”.

Tony Murray – Accounts Manager Retires after 19 Years

 Having devoted over 19 years to O’Brien’s Tony Murray decided to retire from the end of December 2020.

Tony commented:

“My first experience of working at O’Brien was as part of the audit and accounts team for Murphy Salisbury.  Everyone was friendly and it was a great place to come to. I didn’t need to think twice when Pete and Mick gave me the opportunity to join the company on a permanent basis in 2002. I shall always be grateful to them for their help and support in that time.   The last 19 years have flown by and it has been amazing to see how the company has developed in that period, the product of Pete and Mick’s vision and the hard work and dedication of everyone connected with the company.

I just wanted to say a massive thankyou to everybody for the send-off you have given me.  It just proves how lucky I have been to work here with such a great crowd of people. I’m knocked out.  I want to thank everybody at the company for being part of the last 18 years, for the laughs and for putting up with me. Thanks again and good luck for the future. I am really going to miss the people and the place.

Peter O’Brien commented:

“Tony joined O’Brien’s in 2002 when we were turning over Four million pounds annually.  At that time he was the only person in accounts. Tony has played a significant part in our growth to a Thirty five million pound turnover business.

Tony’s loyalty and wish to support us has being unquestionable throughout the whole of his 19 years with us. On behalf of myself, Mick and the other directors I would like to thank him for his support throughout the time he has been part of the team and wish him good luck in his retirement.”

O’Brien Contractors have successfully secured a contract with the Mars Pension Trust at their event centre, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire.

The project delivering temporary laydown areas for future events, infrastructure, plus upgrades to the existing sewerage system are required by the park as it is being severely affected by the HS2 development. The proposed rail line splits the site into two and stagnates the northern part of the facility whilst the HS2 construction operations are being carried out.

To maintain the operating capabilities of the business, alternative areas for event space and new traffic routes are required. Also the existing drainage system is currently being infiltrated by ground water, and our works on site will include upgrades to the system to alleviate these issues.

Stoneleigh Park National Agricultural and Exhibition Centre is the location for a wide variety of popular events, including a range of exhibitions, outdoor agricultural and equestrian events, conferences and shows, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Park each year.

O’Brien will act as Principal Contractor and Designer on the project.

The project commences February with a 16 week programme.

https://trust.obriencontractors.co.uk/five-supercar-thrill-with-high-speed-passenger-ride-voucher-raffle/