We are delighted to announce that Geoffrey Taylor has been granted the Fellowship of the British Constructional Steelwork Association (BCSA). With over 60 years in the structural steelwork industry, he is immensely proud to receive this honour.
Geoffrey began his career in 1964 when he joined Dorman Long straight from Imperial College, where he studied civil engineering. He joined as a student apprentice and spent 15 years with the company. In 1967 the Government nationalised Dorman Long along with 13 other steel making firms into the British Steel Corporation (BSC) and the amalgamated engineering businesses became known as Redpath Dorman Long (RDL). His time there was very varied: he returned to Imperial College to complete an MSc in Structural Engineering—partly sponsored by BCSA—served a five-year secondment in Ghana with Dorman Long, and also worked on North Sea offshore module construction in the North East.
In 1981, he joined Graham Wood Structural as Commercial Director, working alongside Tom Goldberg, Peter Samworth, and Roger Pope—all former RDL colleagues. Roger Pope, like Geoffrey, has since become a Fellow of the BCSA and Tom Goldberg and Peter Samworth both served as President. While there, Graham Wood built what was arguably a game changing structure: 1 Finsbury Avenue. This pioneering building was the first to utilise composite design in real anger and with through deck stud welding reduced program times significantly. The wider team included such industry luminaries as Peter Foggo (still at Arup then) and Sir Stuart Lipton. This structure paved the way for what would become the norm for commercial office block developments in London and went on to win a Structural Steel Design Award in 1985.
Following the recession of the early 1990s and the closure of Graham Wood (along with many other steelwork companies), Geoffrey moved to Watson Steel (now Severfield) as Sales and Marketing Director. During his time there Watson built what is now known as the O2 Arena (formerly The Millennium Dome) and Chep Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong – the latter was the largest single construction project in the world at the time.
In 2000, he was delighted to be approached by David Bingham, then Chairman of Caunton Engineering, to join him and his son Simon as Sales and Marketing Director. Geoffrey is proud to have been part of Caunton Engineering ever since.
Reflecting on his career, Geoffrey says he is grateful to have spent his working life in such an exciting, ambitious industry among imaginative, skilful, and positive people. He entered what was then very much a craft-based trade—using the template loft, tape measure, and slide rule—and has witnessed the industry evolve through the introduction of composite construction (speed on site), CAD-CAM and BIM – speed and accuracy - to today where we have robots and lasers in our factories and drones on site. He continues to marvel at what can now be achieved with steel and is deeply impressed by how profoundly the industry has evolved in his lifetime.
Geoffrey’s Fellowship is richly deserved as he has given so much more to the wider industry throughout his long career. He has been the longest serving Chairman of the BCSA’s Marketing and Membership Committee and today sits on the Editorial Board of New Steel Construction.
Our founder and Past BCSA President, David Bingham, added “I was on the BCSA Council when they launched the BCSA Fellowship. Two of the earliest recipients were Victor Girardier and Bob Latter. Alan Watson was the first. I had heard of your nomination as did all the past Presidents who all gave you their vote. I consider you to be alongside Joe (Locke) and Victor, you have given so much of your time to BCSA causes and marketing without remuneration. You have served the steel industry well and carried Caunton forward as well. You will wear your medal with much pride and rightly so”.