Ambitious goals met, but more to achieve

Once in post he was tasked with pulling together the existing Capital, Estates, and Facilities teams into a new department that could efficiently design, build, and service Trust infrastructure, and devise a medium-term plan to modernise and upgrade key buildings. Staff re-named the department ‘Essentia’ because of its work’s essential nature, and today Essentia not only delivers a wide range of estates and facilities services for the Trust and manages its estate, but also – via its Essentia Trading arm – supports a growing external client base in ‘getting the best out of their built assets’. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

Steve McGuire was born in 1959 in Wigan to a coalmining family. On leaving school in 1975, he was himself keen to be miner, but, since none of his family had ever been to college or university to train in mining engineering, he determined that this was the route he should follow. Aged 16, he found himself down a mine shaft at Golborne Colliery near Leigh in Lancashire as an apprentice – ‘a real shock to the system to find yourself plummeted down a mineshaft with a cage full of seasoned miners about a week after leaving school’. He spent the first five years of his career working in local mines in and around Leigh in Lancashire, combining his time at the coalface with gaining a mining education, initially on a college course at St Helen’s Technical College in Stafford, and, subsequently at Stafford University. 

He said: “I think the way that we were trained as mining engineers – a 50/50 mix of practical and academic training – was first-class. I reflect on this a lot, because I think it is really important in terms of what we look to offer young recruits, and particularly apprentices, joining Essentia. There are not generally enough opportunities today for kids to go into the apprenticeship route, but we have made offering apprenticeships a big part of our remit at Essentia.