Meet the Editor ...

I am a Chartered Surveyor and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building with some 44 years experience in the construction industry … in 2008 I became one of the three finalists in the UK for the title of ‘Health and Safety Champion of the Year’ for my work with CDM2007.org … I was a member of the Strategic Forum for Construction during the time John Spanswick in the chair …

… I tend to put my career into three parts – first early years were spent in civil engineering in the UK and some trips abroad working on some international major projects … tunnels, bridges, dams, culverts, the iconic water towers in Kuwait City, ski-jump at Lahti in Finland, a veritable tonka-toy existence for a young guy enjoying life and seeing the world – well, the grubby building sites of the world that is,  

… middle part of my career was spent developing my professional skills in design and project management working with a number of architectural design practices, surveying firms, running my own development practice for a while then took over the chief development surveyor post in a social housing association at the early days of the mid-wars estates renewals programme in social housing … I suppose that brought me into the third part of my career …

… working in three local councils and networking provided me a valuable insight into a range of corporate models and regimes – indeed, the range has been quite interesting – best value, CCT, TUPE, ALMOs, unitaries, client-side, in-house consultancy side, reorganisations, DLOs, etc. … eventually, a reorganisation gave me the opportunity to take over the role of managing a multi-disciplinary construction team during the latest consultation on CDM when I was able to develop safety culture and understanding in the team …

… my direct involvement as operational Editor-in-Chief within the team of CDM2007.org is now completed at the end of 2011 when the team again won the prestigeous Constructing Excellence Award for Leadership People Development  … CDM2007.org will continue to provide the unique award-winning modular E-Learning multi-media training online including the new CDM-Award online bridging course leading to an accredited QCF qualification awarded by ProQual ...

... now, moving into 2012 ~ with Rook Systems I am pleased to lead on the delivery of venue training sessions and workshops ~ including special mentoring training to groups for the CDM-Award [QCF] ...

and to undertake specialist CDM Audits ... in fact, through this unique hands-on approach to bringing its special expertise to the construction industry, Rook Systems is able to offer to be the "CDM Friend" to any organisation large or small who needs help and guidance in keeping within safe compliance ...

David Jones FCIOB  FASI  MRICS  M-CDM-C