Meet the team – Paul Watters
Paul Watters has been an integral part of Russwood since 2009, making him one of our longest-standing team members. In this edition of ‘Meet the Team,’ Marketing Director, Claire Howie, caught up with Paul to reflect on his 15-year journey with the company, from starting as a production operative to his recent promotion to Production Foreman.
From masonry to mill: how it all started
Paul is one of Russwood’s longest standing members of the team, having joined us in 2009. He was one of eight Russwood employees who recently received an award for length of service, one of the many company benefits that come with working at Russwood. Before joining us, Paul was working for a masonry company in Aberdeen – he had a long daily commute for sure, travelling between home in the Highlands and work in the north-east. A friend who was working for Russwood at the time encouraged Paul to apply for a job that was being advertised in the planing mill. He had always had an interest in wood and, being practically minded with an interest in making furniture, he thought he’d go ahead and apply. And the rest, as they say, is history!
Climbing the ladder: from Production Operative to Foreman
Paul has spent the majority of his time at Russwood working in the planing mill, joining initially as a Production Operative before he was promoted to joint Supervisor. After seven years as a Supervisor, Paul was promoted again in July of this year to Production Foreman, a new role to the company. Paul’s extensive knowledge of Russwood, our products and how they are produced made him the ideal candidate to take the role on and he has a few ideas of changes that he’d like to introduce, although he’s keeping his cards close to his chest about what those changes are!
Paul likes change, and he’s certainly seen a number of those in his 15 years at Russwood! I asked Paul what are the biggest changes that he’s seen – “technology and expansion”. There were 25 employees at Russwood when Paul joined in 2009 and now, we have more than doubled. One of the biggest advancements in technology has been in the planer and optimiser alone. When Paul first joined Russwood, the planer itself was much more basic and manual. “Once our current project to relocate the planning mill is complete, we’ll have improved flow in our production processes and that will help to increase our throughput and reduce our lead times.”
Paul has been through a number of training programmes in his time at Russwood including Lean Manufacturing training, Supervisor training and he is currently attending a leadership training course along with some of his colleagues in production, sales, marketing, flooring and the architect liaison teams.
Keeping busy: Paul’s life outside Russwood
Anyone who has been lucky enough to work with Paul knows him for always making himself available and being willing to help out with questions or to give advice. He enjoys training up new and younger members of the team. His experience of working across all of our production areas means he has a good spread and depth of knowledge of our business.
Paul is as busy out of work as he is at work! Aside from spending time with his family, Paul loves to spend time outdoors and with two dogs and five ponies relying on him, he’s rarely short of jobs to be doing.
We wish Paul all the best in his new role and look forward to seeing what plans for changes he has up his sleeve over the coming months.
Would you like to join the team?
We are always keen to hear from people who are interested in working at Russwood both in our yard and office teams. Available positions and details of how to apply speculatively can be found on our careers page.