Team Talk with Trevor Baxter

In this month’s Willerby Team Talk chat we speak to Trevor Baxter, who is part of our process engineering department.

Trevor joined Willerby in 1998 and will mark his 25th year with us in November.

He first joined in the cladding team, before moving on to fitting Belgian roofs. He became a chargehand in the cladding bay and later a team leader. Trevor took up a production support role five years ago which evolved into his current role.

Q. Tell us about your job and what it involves.

A. Day to day I support the production team in delivering their targets. One of my responsibilities is to make sure none of the parts are missing from the holiday homes and find a solution if there’s an issue – essentially helping us to product on time, in full.

Another part of my role is to create instructions on how to complete tasks – we call them one-point lessons (OPLs) – such as how to fit cladding or insulate units correctly. This helps our production operatives to understand and carry out processes properly and safely.

My team make sure audits are completed, so workstations are safe, clean and organised – we take real pride in this across the business.

Q. What’s the best thing about your job?

A. No two days are the same. They say if you find a job you love you’ll never work a day in your life and this is pretty close. I work with great people and it’s a team effort from the top to the bottom, which is what I like about Willerby.

I have lots of colleagues who’ve worked for the company for many years, so Willerby must be doing something right for people to stay so long. The culture and environment are great and it’s the best place I’ve worked.

Q. What does being part of the Willerby team mean to you?

A. I’m proud of what I do and what we produce. I see what goes out to the customer and it’s nice to know we made that.

We have some fantastic products and it’s brilliant to work alongside great people to produce them. I think the Willerby range really stands out within the industry because there’s something for everybody.

Q. If you didn’t work for Willerby and you could do any job in the world, what would it be?

A. This is a tough one! I used to be a boxer when I was younger and I also like baking and cooking, so it could be one of those routes, or possibly become a café owner. I also used to work in a tannery – who knows what my career would have looked like if I’d stayed there!

Q. What’s your secret claim to fame?

A. I met the British Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Richard Dunn, just before he fought Muhammad Ali when I was about 13 years old. Richard presented me with a winning trophy at a boxing show in Leeds and it was an amazing moment.