Spotlight on Gas Safety: John Stirling
Over the course of Gas Safety Week 2021 (which took place from 13-19 September), we caught up with some of our members, asking them about their careers to date, their thoughts on gas safety and what the future of both gas and, more specifically, gas safety looks like to them. John Stirling is the Standards Manager at Gas Safe Register, who organise the Gas Safety Week campaign and a Fellow Member of IGEM.
John’s career began in 1992, when he started an Apprentice Service Engineer role with Scottish Gas. Upon the completion of his apprenticeship, he decided to broaden his horizons and leave Scottish Gas, moving to one of the bigger contractors where he ended up managing the quality control side of things.
In 2002, he started with CORGI and, other than a short break working for a local authority, he’s worked for the registration body since: “In my time with CORGI/Gas Safe Register, I have been an Inspector, a Technical Officer on the Helpline and also involved with Training Support”, he says.
John has been in his current role, as Standards Manager, for approximately six years now and says that, as is the case with most roles, it’s grown and developed over the years: “purely from an internal point of view, I develop our technical training for our Gas Services Team”.
“From a public and engineer-facing point of view, I have two main roles”, he says. “I look after Gas Safe Register’s technical content and library. This could be anything from industry-led technical bulletins to industry standard updates, to safety alerts to consumer factsheets – so fairly wide-reaching”.
“I also look after Gas Safe Register’s involvement with industry standards. We represent HSE and industry by sitting on various industry committees and I look after our involvement”, he continues, “I spend the majority of my time working both with industry stakeholders and the standard setting bodies to create and maintain practical guidance for the industry”.
“It’s a role that I enjoy doing and I work with a good team. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue in the role for the foreseeable future”.
In terms of how his role supports safety, John works with stakeholders to provide practical guidance to registered engineers and businesses and to the public: “over the years, I’ve built relationships with our industry that allows us to work together to produce and provide practical guidance”, he says – adding “being completely honest, I am proud of the guidance that is produced and proud of what the working relationships and collaborations allow us to achieve”.
On why he chose to become a member of IGEM, John says it was actually a former colleague that pushed him to do it, adding that he is “extremely proud to be a member and even more proud to represent IGEM as a Fellow and would like to get more involved with IGEM, possibly through IGEM Council involvement."
“As mentioned, I work a fair bit with industry stakeholders and the standard setting bodies. IGEM are an organisation that I do a lot of work with. My relationship and membership with IGEM allows me access to technical resources which are vital to my role”, he says.
Discussing his involvement with Gas Safety Week, John says: “Gas Safe Register organises Gas Safety Week, but it is now really an industry-wide initiative. At a general level this means we set the theme and do a PR push out to consumers, and we encourage others in the industry - large and small - to take the opportunity to get their own gas safety messages out there. My role, as with many of my colleagues, means I have lots of contact with my peers across industry, so we play a big part in encouraging people to get involved”.
The main take-away from the Gas Safety Week campaign? “The main thing is probably seeing our large and diverse industry coming together with a shared focus. As an industry, we would say that we are about gas safety 52 weeks a year but, for consumers, having lots of messaging focused in a single week helps to get their attention”.
When asked what he sees as the most vital part of gas safety, John says he doesn’t see that there’s a single part that is vital – “we all have a role to play, whether that’s as engineers in a customer’s home, or a training centre or even as a registration body. We should be working together to improve and develop our industry and that is definitely achievable”.
Looking towards the future of gas, John says “it’s exciting times in our industry, especially with the work that is going on with the introduction of hydrogen. As an industry, provided we can work together, there is no reason why we cannot go from strength to strength”.
To find out more about becoming an IGEM Fellow member here.