INTERVIEW
Despite Safer, faster, greener trains with MIDEL An exclusive talk with Steve Jones, Sales Director, MIDEL, Singapore
Meet Steve Jones, Sales Director of MIDEL that leads the way in delivering transformer fire protection, environmental safety and cost savings for utilities and power and distribution transformer manufacturers since 1970. Jones is a proven ester technology expert and worked with the largest and most respected companies in the transformer industry to help them deliver against their energy mega-trend challenges. He has hands-on experiences stretch's across distribution to large power transformers as well as specialist applications in traction and renewable energy on a global scale. In a recent interaction with Urban Transport News, Jones shared very insightful thoughts about how MIDEL contributing to the world with safer, greener and sustainable solutions.
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METRO RAIL TODAY JUNE 2021
First, please tell our readers about your professional journey in the industry? Having been born in a small town in the UK famous for its role in the birth of the railway age, trains have always been part of my life. Amazingly, the railway station in Crewe where I am from was built in 1837 – it is incredible to imagine what rail travel must have been like in those days and what a great engineering story to picture George Stephenson’s rocket passing through it. I began my professional career with a local rail company as an apprentice working on manufacturing and repairing all types of railway equipment from signalling to large bogie sets on rolling stock. I always had a great sense of pride when travelling on a train with family and friends knowing that I had made a little contribution to the safe and reliable operation of the journey. I then went on to spend the next 10 years supporting the development of rail technology and more recently traffic systems around the world. Now I still champion safer railway technologies here in Asia and have been fortunate to support innovation at leading operators such as Network Rail in the UK, SNCF in France and CRRC in China with its High-speed rail system. What is the vision and mission of M&I Materials and how the company is planning its expansion in the Asia Pacific Region? M&I Materials is a leader in commercialising materials for industry and science and proudly operates in over 70 countries. The brand in focus here is MIDEL ester transformer fluids and in Asia Pacific, our mission is to educate engineers on how challenging the status quo can make a significant difference to the performance of energy systems. It isn’t acceptable anymore to settle for ‘we have always done it that way’ – we want to greatly improve rail engineering governance. We are fortunate to have some of the worlds’ most advanced experts in this subject matter and help organisations make the change to ester fluids and give them the confidence to embrace the technology to the fullest; we have no plans to stifle the momentum that we have created.
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