Graham Shelley-Jones
Graham Shelley-Jones has enjoyed a lifelong career in the maintenance and growth of commercial enterprises - predominantly within the manufacturing and engineering arenas.
From 2000 to 2008, he served as the British Government's Trade Development Manager for New South Wales, operating from the premises of the British Consulate-General overlooking Circular Quay on Sydney Cove.
Previously, Graham had worked in various Australian businesses in senior management roles, including eleven years as the founding director of an environmentally focused engineering company.
He was the prime driver in the building, commissioning and touring of the world's first, fully accredited mobile window & door mechanical testing laboratory across Australia. He's 'been there, done that' and loves the thrill of the commercial chase.
ABA's resources include a cadre of similarly minded and backgrounded professionals, all experts in their respective fields.
Background
Graham trained as an engineering tradesman and became a mechanical Fitter and Machinist in the rail sector.
He was equally at home working on a steam locomotive or a 3200 H.P. diesel locomotive in a maintenance drop-pit, as he was, many years later, as the Trade Development Manager for the British High Commission in Australia at its largest commercial office - the British Consulate-General in Sydney.
As a young Sales Engineer he sold specialist machine tools, measuring & testing instrumentation, filtration and production machinery, and electronic scanning & labelling machinery. He has driven specialist trucks around Australia and spent time behind multi-tyred road-rolling machinery and some construction equipment.
From 1972 he embarked on the establishment of a small engineering company which became the catalyst for his transfer to management roles in a number of companies, covering manufacture and production of various and specialised products.
Some of the companies and industries included: resins and adhesives, fibre cement, aluminium and glass, traditional timber joinery, steel fabrication, petroleum, cranes, and paper corrugate.
From the early 70s he sat on a number of Australian Standards review committees and draft Standards groups.
From early 2000 Graham commenced a period of service with the British Consulate-General in Sydney, which involved liaison with visiting scientific specialists and commercial identities. He routinely dealt with various Australian and British NGOs and government organisations from both countries.
He has been extremely active in the promotion of UK companies and commercial organisations in establishing relationships with Australian business.
He worked across UK and Australian business sectors especially in relation to: Power, Marine, Agriculture, Rail, Ports, Process Printing & Packaging machinery, Environmental and Measuring & Testing equipment.
In 2007, Graham promoted and orchestrated a number of meetings involving senior UK and Australian government officials to address and consider the effects of Global Warming and Energy Security.
World's first Mobile Testing Laboratory of it's type
Graham was the prime driver in the building, commissioning and touring of the world's first, fully accredited mobile window & door mechanical testing laboratory across Australia.
It proved so successful and useful to designers that a number of additional units were built, and exported to several other countries.
The laboratory was fully transportable and fully accredited with the National Association of Testing Laboratories of Australia (NATA).
Other key points:
- It was able to be taken to any location in Australia thus securing absolute confidentiality for the designers.
- It was able to certify all Australian Standard tests and to carry out tests to all foreign and international ISO Standards.
- It was able to test fenestration products up to wind pressures of 125 kilometres per hour.
- It was able to provide wind load gusting, both positive and negative pressures, in a single installed position, never before carried out in Australia.
- Test reports were, ultimately, able to be produced within 48 hours of actual tests.
- The design concept was able to be incorporated into subsequently built fixed laboratories.
- It was said to have revolutionised many designs of residential and high-rise fenestration in Australia.
Graham became acknowledged as an industry 'expert' and assisted the local authorities in Singapore and Mainland China, in their understanding of the testing concepts, and to revisit their own design Standards.
Singapore subsequently adopted a number of the test principles and incorporated them into its own Standards, while the (then Hong Kong laboratory test authority equivalent to NATA), the Hong Kong Laboratory Accreditation Scheme (HOKLAS), also embraced many of the test principles. NATA supported the supervision of the laboratory to their Standards of operation by CSIRO staff drawn from various research facilities and academic institutions.
Since leaving the industry Graham has seen many new innovative designs flow from the R&D work that he encouraged and assisted in the travels of this unique facility.
Statistics:
- Approximately 36,000 people witnessed tests within the laboratory over five years, as it travelled some 50,000 kilometres around Australia.
- The laboratory vehicle and container was entirely self-supporting, from its self-loading/unloading extendable hydraulic ram 'legs', to its massive fan, water sprinkler system, through to its air directional actuating valves and full instrumentation.
- As NATA Signatory for the Laboratory, Graham personally issued over 100 certified test reports. The laboratory continued to be used by Schlegel Pty Ltd for some years following his departure.
Australia's first dedicated acoustical contracting company
In 1972 Graham and business partner Michael Mason formed a specialist acoustics engineering contracting company, which became the first of its type and a leader in the relatively new field of 'noise control'.
Noise was emerging as a multi million dollar litigation area for heavy industries, as a result of research identifying noise as an undesirable consequence of employees working in particular occupations. The Federal and State Governments of Australia were among the first countries in the world to regulate against work induced deafness and community noise abatement.
Operating as a self funded private company, the business expanded rapidly to a workforce of twenty six employees within ten years, necessitating three factory relocations to accommodate growth.
Graham assumed the role of marketing and training officer for the company, at a time when there was little known about the problem beyond the few Australian Acoustical Consultants who were emerging as some of world's best proponents of the art. He delivered Acoustical Awareness programs in OH & S in support of newly formed government inspectorate officers and government authorities that needed to set an example of containment and treatment at a rapid rate.
Graham and Michael's company quickly established itself as a reliable and sought-after supplier and contractor to major private companies such as BHP and its many subsidiaries, Union Carbide, and CSR - as well as government authorities such as the Department of Defence, RTA, the Homebush Abattoirs, Water Board and many others that recognised the ramifications of inaction.
In 1979 Graham and Michael negotiated the Canadian purchase of their company, on the basis of the desire of the USA parent company to establish a beachhead into the Australian market. That company continues to trade today with Graham having sold his share to Michael.