JMS Director Graham Chapman eyes national goals from Reading office

As JMS Director Graham Chapman, steps into a new role as SAS & Technical Director at JMS, he may be moving to our Reading office, but his eye is now very much on the wider business.

“I’m excited to be relocating from London to Reading,” he explains. “On a personal level, Reading is a great place to call home, and on a professional level, there’s no denying this regional office is right at the heart of many of our key projects. Having said that, I’ll be taking my role throughout JMS as a whole.”

Overseeing company-wide changes

Graham’s move into a more specialised, and less regional centric role, will see him leading the way on a series of initiatives.

“On the surveying side, I’ll be widening the auditing pool, so more of our engineers can gain key skills and on-site experience. This will also give us flexibility to meet the needs of some of our biggest clients, such as Hanson and Breedon. And of course, it will allow our most experienced Structural auditors to pass on their skills to the wider team. In the near future, we plan to introduce a certification process that will enable us to demonstrate our experience to new and future clients.”

Meanwhile, on the technical side, he plans to develop the JMS proformas and protocols currently on the JMS information portal. He also aims to incorporate future technologies such as Drone Surveys, Automated Survey Reporting and Cloud technology within JMS, to ensure the Group stays one step ahead.

“I’m going to review the software we use on a regular basis, to ensure JMS maintains the at the forefront of technical innovation.”

Graham is also keen to emphasise he will still have his eye on the client side of the business.

“Although I will be offering engineering advice and guidance to our teams across the Group I think it’s important, no matter what role you have in the company, to understand what our client’s needs are, and that will feed into my strategy.”

And what is Graham excited about for 2021?

“Apart from getting to grips with my new responsibilities, and seeing some positive changes rolled out nationwide, I believe 2021 will be a year of renewed growth. JMS have withstood the worse of Covid, having actually managed to thrive and get a substantial number of key projects off the ground. With the potential for things to continue to improve next year, I believe we are going to see involvement in many of the new projects getting the “green light” throughout the country. With the way JMS has created a national infrastructure with regional offices, it’s going to be the local offices, like Reading, who are able to capitalise on the opportunities that present themselves.”

We wish Graham all the best in his new role, and suspect he is going to be making waves at JMS for many years to come.