Profile

Dr. Gerald Avison

It is many years since I was a ‘Working Woman’ and I was totally unprepared for the informality of The Technology Partnership when I went to interview head man Dr. Gerald Avison. Everybody, but everybody, calls him Gerald! I say ‘head man’ because I was told that nobody has a job title, unless they are visiting Japan or China where it is deemed a politic necessity! We met in one of the nine individually designed conference rooms which I had been lucky enough to see before when TTP allowed the History Group to launch our Melbourn 2000 book in their newly opened building. Since then, more building has taken place and the Science Park is certainly a credit and an asset to Melbourn.

Over a cup of excellent coffee and a plate of biscuits which sorely tempted me, I learned that Gerald Avison was born in Yorkshire, near Saddleworth Moor – he grew up there and went to school in Manchester. He studied Aeronautical Engineering at Bristol University and went on to do a post graduate degree. He met and married his wife Jean (a midwife) in Bristol and worked for BAC on the Concorde project, living in Bristol until moving to Cambridge in 1972 when he got a job working for PA Consultants, who were then based in Milton. PA then transferred to the Industrial Estate in Melbourn where Gerald worked for several years until 1987 when there was a cataclysmic shake up and 32 key members broke away from PA. This was a considerable percentage of the workforce and I can remember the whole village buzzing with the news. These rebels set themselves up in the buildings alongside Moat House in Moat Lane – premises affectionately known as the Rat Hole! David Parnell, one of the group, lived in Melbourn at the time and was a well known member of the Parish Council and Fete Committee. This new venture provided consulting services (or contract development services) dedicated to developing new technologies, new products and to solving problems under contract.

The company was owned by the founder employees who put up some £700,000 of their own money to fund the venture, with some external support from CinVen and a laboratory in Australia which had broken away from PA Technology the previous year. This ethos of share ownership within the company is still strong in the group, with opportunities given to new employees to become shareholders with interest free loans and a Share Investment Plan with monthly savings. There is also a profit related bonus scheme. Every effort is made to migrate shares to the next generation and the bulk of the shareholding may only be held by employees or ex-employees.

After some years in the Rat Hole they were able to rent new premises in the newly established Science Park, then later they acquired a quarter of the site and eventually became owners of it all. They have a positive policy of interaction with the community, besides sponsoring our own Melbourn Magazine. In a very practical way they support other activities in the area. You will see in another part of the magazine the recent opening, by Dr. Avison, of the All Saints’ Community Hall – TTP were major benefactors in the establishment of the hall and I know from my husband George that they also support his Rotary Kids Out Day at Wimpole. So we build up a picture of a company which has quite old fashioned basic principles of supporting and valuing both their employees and the area in which they operate. In Gerald’s own words ‘I see the company as a social enterprise where people get together to earn a crust’ and this simple, down to earth philosophy is their great strength.

Everyone will be familiar with the very attractive campus and the light and airy buildings and landscaping. I likened part of the building to being on a ship. Although they do not have a Social Club as such, members of the 300-strong staff do get together in informal ways for various activities – and they have Corporate Membership of McSplash and the Squash Courts and these facilities are widely used. Every Friday evening at 5 p.m. they may gather to have a talk, usually by a member of the company who will talk on his/ her subject – very often the individual will be working on a specific project and it is an opportunity for other employees get to know the speaker, and understand the other work going on around them. I know from my days on the Parish

Council that they took care to invite the councillors to view the plans and models for their various building programmes. Gerald says that it is not difficult to be a good neighbour!

Now to get down to the technical stuff! I was very privileged to be given a tour of the buildings and to see for myself the exceptionally clever machines (and people) working there. TTP technology has been used in so many items in everyday use, from mobile DAB radios and TV handsets, asthma inhalers and nebulisers, glucose monitors, drills, jigsaws and mobile phones to a portable hand held carbon monoxide detector – perhaps the first thing we should pack in our suitcases! After several years of rapid growth, in 1998, they de-merged The Automation Partnership (TAP) now located in Orchard Road, Royston and, two years later, de-merged and listed TTP Communications on the London Stock Exchange. The company is still on site, but was bought by Motorola in 2006.

How I wish my clever grandson had been with me as I walked round. He would have been far more able to ask pertinent questions than I but, however nontechnical, one couldn’t help but be fascinated by the brilliant machinery working nonstop to make our lives safer. I saw a machine developed for the French market which will detect the minutest particle of bacteria in water and another amazing pharmaceutical development; an enormous refrigerator containing thousands of samples in tiny phials, each one with an identifying code on the base. Then another machine produced a plastic tape upon which small 1” lengths of plasticcoated stainless steel were fixed. These miniature ‘pipettes’ were dropped into the tiny phials, the top of the steel pulled up, thus sucking a measured amount of liquid into the tube, thence it was carried on to be deposited onto a slide where it would crystallise and later be analysed.

Now the other thing that caught my imagination is hot off the press, only just about to be released and in fact our printing deadline of 1st September may be too close for comfort! It is a method of printing photographic quality digital images onto cans. This means that, as well as more serious applications, such as corporate promotional messages, you could perhaps have personalised cans of beer or soft drinks for your party etc. What a novel invitation it would be! This technology has been under development for 14 years, in fact some of the employees working on it have done nothing else! Big party when that one launches (with personalised cans?)

I cannot begin to list all the complex applications of laboratory biochemistry for healthcare diagnostics and screening; the Dymo labelling machines, image-processing software, the list is endless. I did however, think that George would be interested in a ‘PerfectDraft’ system which delivers chilled draught beer in the kitchen, this was conceived and developed by TTP from start to finish and again, is a recent launch in Europe.

What does a man like Gerald Avison do for a hobby, I asked. Gerald waved his arms to encompass the building. ‘This is my hobby’, he said, but when pressed he did confess to enjoy walking his dog, an eight-year-old rescue Lurcher and he enjoys travelling, particularly if it involves trains or boats. He has visited the Arctic three times and the Antarctic once and did a mammoth journey across Russia by train from Moscow to Beijing, via Tashkent and Samarkand. This year, however, they are following the trend and holidaying in Devon. His two children, just into their thirties, live and work in London but neither has followed in father’s footsteps. Margaret the elder of the two works for an animal charity and Tom works for a group of Arthouse Film cinemas.

So I left feeling even more impressed that Melbourn is the base for such a world–renowned company which not only looks after its employees but also nurtures the community and very grateful that such a busy man could spare me the time for this interview, patiently explaining processes way above my head so that I could understand them. I hope that you, too, will be fascinated by this insight into the Melbourn Science Park. Mavis Howard