After graduating from Brunel University with a BSc in Engineering Management, Luke joined Foster Wheeler in 2005 as a procurement graduate. He is currently studying part-time for his CIPS qualification which will enable him to apply for chartered membership with the institution.
Luke's first placement was working on an LNG expansion project for an Australian client. He covered a wide range of procurement tasks, including the purchasing, expediting and material control of equipment for the plant, which gave him first-hand experience of negotiating with suppliers.
He then chose to specialise in the material control and expediting aspects of procurement, firstly for equipment on a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia and, more recently, on a major mono-ethylene glycol project in Singapore, working as the primary material controller. He's responsible for all the material control tasks and liaises closely with his counterparts in Foster Wheeler's Indian Execution Centre (IEC). He's visited the Chennai office in India to oversee training and the handover of some key tasks. This latest role has given him an excellent insight in to how an EPC project operates.
He says, "As more work is being shared with our IEC offices, I believe that it's essential to establish the skills for working with multicultural, multi-centre teams early on in your career. I have found this aspect of my role to be challenging as the people I work so closely with are thousands of miles away but the team rapport we have, especially since my visits, is so rewarding and vital to my day-to-day work."
"Luke is now the mentor to a recent procurement graduate, supporting the programme that he says, "keeps improving year upon year". He continues, "The Graduate Programme offers new and existing grads plenty of opportunities for training and career development on the path they want to follow."
