Name: Declan Thomson
Role: Associate Director
Why Tenos?: “When I used to work in Manchester I heard the name Tenos a lot, to the extent I considered Tenos to be the “Rolls Royce” of the fire engineering industry.
Tenos offer a breadth of fire engineering expertise in various aspects of the discipline, offering a one stop shop for fire engineering services which means they stood out from the crowd.
When Alec and Tenos’ MD, Sam, approached me to join the team with the ambition of developing a Scottish office, I jumped at the chance.”
What is the biggest challenge in the industry?:
“In my opinion, the biggest challenges in the fire engineering industry at the moment is the lack of expertise. Fire engineers are being expected to deliver far more than they used to. Gone are the days where a fire engineer would be brought in to address a specific issue, such as just a Stage 3 fire strategy report, and that would be the extent of their services. Now fire engineers are expected to be far more involved throughout the life of the project, which is great, however, the knowledge of a fire strategist only goes so far. That is what I like about Tenos, I can develop a fire strategy, the project design team can implement that strategy and other parts of the Tenos team can aid that implementation from review of non-standard details, EWS1 assessments, installation surveying.”
What do you do outside of work?:
“My wife and I welcomed our son into the world in February so there is not much time outside of work for anything other than dadding. I was fortunate enough to be able to take 2 months off before I joined Tenos and this gave me some time to spend with the family that most people do not get.”