Meet The Team

Paul Strick - Birmingham Airport Air Traffic Limited

Manager Communications, Navigation & Surveillance (Engineering Manager) - Birmingham Airport Air Traffic Limited

Matched to: WMG Academy for Young Engineers Solihull

Why did you become an Enterprise Adviser?

When I went through the education system I had quite poor careers advice. I wanted to offer my experience and knowledge to assist young people to make a well-informed careers choice for their future and to help within the local community.

What do you enjoy most in your role as an Enterprise Adviser?

I’m now in my second year of being an enterprise adviser, it’s been quite restrictive during Covid. I am looking forward to working closer with my school and seeing the positive outcomes from our efforts.

Overview of your chosen career or career pathway to your current role.

When I first left high school, I really didn’t know what to do because the only thing I had ever wanted to do was now out of my reach, so I got a job at a local electronics factory building printed circuit boards. Working alongside electronics engineers just reinforced what I wanted to do as a career. Trying to progress within the company though was very difficult because they only recruited experienced engineers. At this point I had to make a difficult decision. I could see my limited career in front of me if I stayed in my production role, so I chose to try to do what I had always wanted to do.

I went to the RAF careers office and spoke to the recruiting staff, and they invited me to take an aptitude test. The first time I took the test I failed so the recruiters told me to come back in six months to retake it. Over the next six months I got my head back into the books and tried to teach myself the English, Maths and Science that I needed to pass that test. Six months later I returned, passed the test and was recruited into the RAF as an Electronics Technician.

During my time in the RAF, I went back to college to do further education on top of the training that the RAF gave to me. While I was studying for a HND, I was diagnosed as severely dyslexic, for me this was a great relief and explained why I struggled at school and why I had to work a lot harder than everyone else.

I was only in the RAF for nine years due to an injury. During this time, I worked in several roles such as: mobile air defence RADAR, IT Networking and Air Traffic Engineering. When leaving the RAF I was told that I would not be able to be an Air Traffic Engineer in the civil world because I didn’t have a degree. Yet again I was unable to do what I wanted to do, so worked for Philips Medical Systems as a field service engineer working with medical equipment.

After a few years, once again I decided to ignore what I had previously been told. I got in touch with different people within the Air Traffic industry and introduced myself and, before I knew it, I had an interview for an Air Traffic Engineer position at Liverpool Airport. I was offered this job and after nine months was promoted to the position of Senior Engineer. After a couple of years of hard work, I was then promoted again and became an Air Traffic Engineering Manager for two airports. After several years working at Liverpool Airport, I was offered a position at Birmingham Airport, working within the Air Traffic Engineering department. I am still working at Birmingham Airport and am now the Engineering Manager.

Contact

lifeready@solihull.gov.uk