The President 2009 - 2011

Mr. T F Phipps

T.F. Phipps (Terry) was born in Tamworth, Staffordshire, on 1^st January 1943, to parents Hilda and Frederick. His father served in the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to the Eighth Army, Battleaxe Division and saw service in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.

Terry was educated at The Mercian School Tamworth and at Aston Technical College, where he obtained his City & Guilds’ Electrical Technicians Certificate. He was indentured as a Drawing Office Apprentice with the General Electric Company (GEC). On completion of his apprenticeship he was employed on switchgear design and H.V. sub station layouts, before moving into C.E.G.B. Sales and Contracts as GEC’s Contract Engineer for the South West of England region. Twelve months later he moved into Switchgear Outside Services engaged on construction and commissioning medium and high voltage substations throughout the U.K.

At the end of the major 10 year C.E.G.B. programme, there was a complete upheaval of the U.K. electrical Industry and Terry decided to look at overseas opportunities. On 1^st October 1971 along with his wife Wendy and daughters Jacqueline and Susan he sailed from Southampton on the Edinburgh Castle to Cape Town, then  by road for the 2,040 mile journey through South Africa, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and onto the Zambian Copperbelt. There, in Kitwe, he took up the position of Assistant Site Electrical Engineer with Anglo American  Centralised Services Engineering Division (AAC).

Terry was initially seconded to Chingola Division of Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines with responsibility for the construction and commissioning of 3 x 33 KV sub stations and overhead lines. These were needed in order to provide power to the main pumping station on the Kafue river and for a conveyor system in the Nchanga open cast mine. The project included the total upgrading and automation of seven sections of conveyor together with a 13 cubic metre bucket wheel excavator and stacking unit, which operated at 3.3 KV and was used to remove the overburden from the open cast mine.

In July 1972 Terry returned to AAC as Site Electrical Engineer for Chingola Tailings Leach and Solvent Extraction Plant and new Electrowinning Tank House.  This was the most up-to-date copper processing plant in the world when completed in 1974 and the project cost was approximately £58m, the electrical content being £17m.

Terry then moved to AAC's head office in Kitwe, having been appointed Senior Electrical Site Engineer on major projects throughout Zambia. In 1976 for approximately 13 months of his last 18 months in Zambia, he became Acting Chief Construction Engineer, covering all disciplines.

In November 1977 he left Zambia and joined Hawker Siddeley Power Engineering (HSPE) and in March 1978 took up the position of Site Electrical Engineer on a major Diesel Power Station in Borno State Nigeria. In July 1978 he was appointed Chief Resident Engineer and continued in this position until he contracted malaria in September 1979, which ultimately forced him to return to U.K. in the November 1979.

After his recovery, in March 1980, he became HSPE Area Engineer on the Dubai Aluminium Smelter (Dubal). On completion, in late 1981, he became HSPE Lower Gulf Office (LGO) Contracts Manager, based in Dubai, covering projects in the UAE, Oman and Qatar. In September 1982 LGO moved to Sharjah and Terry was appointed Resident Manager and continued in this position until its closure in September 1984.

On returning to U.K. as Overseas Operations Manager he was responsible to Rankin Thornton-Jones for all overseas projects and in March 1985 was asked to take-up the position of General Manager for Zawawi Power Engineering (ZPE) and HSPE Oman; ZPE being a local company with HSPE having responsibility for the technical and management side.

He returned to U.K. in April 1989 as General Manager, Generation Division. In 1993 he became Acting Projects Director of both the Generation Division and the Distribution Division. This involved travelling world-wide on major projects with values of up to £50m+. This was in addition to completion and maintenance periods at Corby and Peterborough Gas Turbine Stations.  With the rundown of HSPE Terry left the company in August 1996 and was contracted by H.S. Switchgear on special projects until March 1997.

In May 1997 he joined Asia Power (Private) as General Manager in Colombo, responsible for a Build, Own and Operate Diesel Power Station. However, whilst on business in Denmark the hotel in Columbo he was living in was bombed so he decided to leave and return to the U.K., which he did in November 1997.

In January 1998 Terry became Head of Projects for ABB at their offices in Stone and on award of the Channel Islands Electricity Grid Project he took over as Lead Project Manager, based in Jersey throughout 1999 and 2000.

On his return to the U.K. office, in January 2001, he became Projects Director for ABB’s major involvement on the London Underground, in partnership with Balfour Kilpatrick and Seaboard Power.

Terry retired in April 2003 and set up home in the village of Hathern with his wife Wendy.