Career Profile
Career Profile
Kenya, Fiji, USA, China, Hong Kong - not names from a travel agent's brochure but just some of the countries one of the Members of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) has worked in during a long career. IAgrE Member - Chris Whetnall served an AMTDA (now BAGMA) agricultural engineering apprenticeship with a John Deere dealership in West Sussex before serving in Kenya under the auspices of Voluntary Service Overseas.
Both during and after his apprenticeship and after returning from Kenya, Chris studied ag engineering at Rycotewood College eventually obtaining a qualification leading to Associate Membership of IAgrE. Teaching posts then followed with two and a half years lecturing in ag-engineering subjects at Lackham College in Wiltshire before being asked to go to Fiji to set up a City & Guilds based vocational training scheme in agricultural engineering in tropical countries under a British Government funded scheme. This was an offer Chris couldn't refuse and three very happy years in the South Pacific followed.
Resource development consultancy was to fill the next 20 years and this is where the travelling really started with a vengeance. Working for one of the world's leading resource development consultancies, first as a mechanisation specialist and later as a Director, long and short term consultancy and other assignments followed in USA, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Cameroon, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana China, Hong Kong and many other countries, some of them repeat visits. During this period, Chris was made a Member of the IAgrE and registered with Engineering Council as an Incorporated Engineer (IEng).
His consultancy work included:
Company management formed part of Chris' time and in addition to maintaining a watching brief over the company's engineering assignments, he built up a separate trading and procurement company. Latterly, Chris also had Board level responsibility for the company's Environment Division.
Chris says that despite not having a degree, being registered as an Incorporated Engineer (IEng) opened up the doors to an international consulting career during which he visited over 40 countries. He can assure you however that the grass is greenest at home! He is also a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), a Fellow of IAgrE and is now Chief Executive of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers.