Barhale has strengthened its senior team with the appointment of two new directors - Owen Mills and Andy Dodman will join the board at the civil engineering and infrastructure specialist in the roles of Engineering Director and Health, Safety, Environment and Quality (HSEQ) Director respectively.

New to Barhale, Owen Mills joins after six years as Head of Engineering at Keltbray’s rail division where his responsibilities included the design and implementation of engineering management processes, maintaining compliance and the promotion of value engineering and design to cost principles. He also had overall responsibility for technical assurance and quality delivery.

Previously, he operated in a senior engineering role for Balfour Beatty on a number of large scale, multi-million pound, multi-discipline projects.

Andy Dodman’s appointment to Director of HSEQ maintains a well-established tradition at Barhale of promotion from within. He joined the business in 2001 as a senior site agent before moving into a safety adviser role just a year later. He became Group Safety Manager in 2008 and subsequently led the integration of the safety function into a wider HSEQ portfolio. He now expands the remit further as he takes overall responsibility for wellbeing. 

Chief executive Martin Brown, described the appointments as an important step for Barhale, commenting:

“Owen will bring valuable expertise and experience as we further bolster our civil engineering business through the restructuring of our engineering services, expand our rail offering and enhance our capabilities to our core water sector clients,” he said. “He brings a 15 year track record of top-flight engineering know-how to Barhale. Equally importantly, his knowledge of best-in-class engineering process is second-to-none and he will lead on how we implement a more proactively assured approach to our engineering services across all of our operations.

“Having previously worked with Owen, I have had first hand experience of his professional expertise and his ability to work with customers to both influence and implement value engineered solutions and design to cost principles. He will prove a great addition to the Barhale team and will play an important role in the business’s strategic development.”

Martin Brown also said that he sees a strong commitment to HSEQ as a principle at the very heart of Barhale’s ethos.

“Andy has been instrumental not just in developing the HSEQ function within the business but also in helping to enshrine awareness and best practice in every member of our team.

“Tunnelling and civil engineering is often carried out in challenging environments and it requires care, discipline and mindfulness at all times. Andy has made those qualities second nature and as a result our HSEQ performance speaks for itself. It is entirely right that he should be the person to represent and lead the HSEQ function for both the business and the board of Directors.”

Both Andy and Owen have been challenged with ensuring that HSEQ is both designed and engineered into all of our projects from inception.