From riveting aircraft wings on the shopfloor for £10 a week to presiding over a global manufacturing giant with pre-tax profits of more than £200m. David Cameron should give GKN chairman, Mike Turner a call if he's having any trouble convincing kids to sign up for the three million new apprenticeships promised in his second term.
"In view of the focus we now have on the advantages of an apprenticeship, I would not be surprised to see event more apprentices making it all the way to CEO," says Turner.
"An apprenticeship allows you to gain academic qualifications, but you also learn about industry, business, getting on with people and working in a team. Apprentices add value quickly whereas university graduates may have expectations that can't be realised."
It was a scenario Turner himself avoided only thanks to a large slice of serendipity. "I was going to go to the London School of Economics until I noticed the guy sat next to me in the upper sixth, David Leach writing to Hawker Siddeley aviation," he explains. "I said: 'David ? why are you doing that?'. He said: 'Well, it's fantastic Mike they pay you £10 a week [the university grant was £5] and they'll sponsor you to do your degree. I thought: 'I fancy that'."
The golden boy of 1966
Pragmatism paid off when Turner was offered a four year undergraduate commercial apprenticeship in 1966. "Only because I was a good inside right and Hawker Siddeley's football team needed one at the time," he jokes.
Turner was to go on a mazy run through various departments at the aircraft manufacturer's Manchester factory before scoring a full time role in the contracts office. He recalls: "I would be studying for my business studies degree at Manchester Polytechnic one month then on the shopfloor putting rivets in 748s the next. You got to work with people who understood about their contribution to the business. That's always stood me in good stead."
The apprenticeship was a springboard for a career spanning six decades that culminated in the chief executive role at BAE Systems between 2002-08 and non-exec chairman roles at Babcock International and GKN. The local-born Didsbury boy, who failed his 11-plus, done good and campaign's ferociously for others to have the same opportunities.
"I've really campaigned hard for the government to come to the party on apprenticeships and an industrial strategy," says Turner- a member of the government's Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network. "I said to Gordon Brown, who never really got it: 'I appreciate the support you're giving us on apprenticeships. But it's no good companies taking these apprentices on if there's no long term future for them. I feel guilty given someone an apprenticeship if there's no job at the end.'"
Industrial strategy: at last the penny has dropped
Brown, says the GKN boss, didn't listen. Tony Blair- who Turner worked with on a defence industrial strategy while at BAE [later scrapped by Brown] and Peter Mandelson did. The Coalition government has also come to the party, he says.
Their legacy is the first explicit industrial strategy since the 1970s. Government support is in place on skill shortages, accessing to finance and bolstering supply chains.
And not a moment too soon says Turner. "We've got some primes back in the UK with JLR and Nissan and what we have to do now is rebuild the supply chain in the automotive sector which GKN is a part of. At last the government has realised that you need an industrial strategy and they are now investing 50:50 alongside a number of sectors including automotive and civil aerospace."
Great news for the GKN's, JLR's and Airbus's of this world. Aerospace and automotive giants, with their strong lobbying power, have fashioned their own government-backed industry growth strategies and secured almost £2bn in Treasury support.
Meanwhile, more fragmented manufacturing sub-sectors? like textiles, general engineering or plastics continue to languish. The end result, says critics like Peter Rieck of the British Coatings Federation, is a lopsided 'wings and wheels' industrial strategy. One which ignores that every high-tech aircraft rolling off the line in the UK relies on specialist resins, plastics and paint produced by less-sexy sister manufacturing sectors. "Deprived of the same level of development of skills and funding, these supporting industries fall behind and become a drag to the success of the primary industry," writes Rieck in an All-Party Manufacturing Group white paper (http://tinyurl.com/l2rdrlv).
Not necessarily so counters Turner of GKN. "It's important to recognise that the big OEMs outsource 50% of their turnover went to the supply chain. Therefore if the big guys benefit from a good industrial strategy then the SMEs do well." And if other manufacturing sectors want more definitive government support, then they should say so advises Turner. "My line to the Department for Business was each sector needs to make its case to you as to why in the long-term they believe the UK can be world competitive. Otherwise don't do it, you're not going to back losers," he says. "We in automotive and civil aerospace have made our case and won. The rest should make their case."
The rewards of a little hustle are not hard to find. GKN bought a technology firm behind an energy saving flywheel from the Williams F1 team last April with the aid of a £7.6million government grant. GKN plans to adapt the technology for use on public buses to cut fuel use, pollution and passenger fares. "The government are now investing 50:50 alongside industry, which is right," says Turner. "If we invest, they're willing to invest and that's encouraging industry to grow in the UK. In the old days when the government wasn't willing to invest alongside us, naturally you'd go to Germany or other countries."
More UTCs please
The shackles are also coming off on skills too according to Turner. "It's getting better and the fact we've grown apprentices to around 500,000 a year has been a great achievement. When that's linked to an industrial strategy you create the best prospects for employment on completion of the apprenticeship."
University Technical Colleges (UTCs), a network of specialist schools prioritising hands-on learning for 14-18 year olds, are a real hit with Turner. "These UTCs are fantastic and the quicker they grow the better. If they can keep taking in and training up young people interested in STEM subjects together with a government that recognises an industrial strategy you've got the demand: pull for future growth."
The recruitment policy has moved on somewhat since Turner regularly trod the shop-floor back in the early 1980s. "I remember going round a huge factory making Nimrods and I saw this school party with their headmistress," he recalls. "I went up to her and said: 'that's fantastic, that you're coming to show these kids the future'. She replied: 'Oh no, I'm showing them what will happen if they don't do well in school'."
Today's generation hear a very different message. Manufacturing is gradually being recast as a career to aspire to: a high-tech sector, brimming with professional challenge, training opportunities and run along refreshingly egalitarian principles. Apprentice or graduate, combine the right attitude with the right aptitude, and the route from shop-floor to the top-floor a realistic possibility.
"I worked hard," says Turner on his meteoric rise. "But there's something else. I remember back in the contracts department when I started out you couldn't put a claim in to be paid by the MoD until you had a cost certificate from the cost department upstairs. Some of these contracts had been completed months ago but remained unpaid. So I went upstairs and demanded the cost certificate: that was unheard of. I think that kind of attitude works. Get things done, don't just say that's my job that little bit. Think big."