Tell us about yourself...
I grew up in Burton Upon Stather just outside of Scunthorpe, my Mum is from Ashby and my Dad grew up in New Holland / Barton.
I moved away in my early 20’s to London and later in life moved to Doncaster with my wife, but a few years ago I was lucky enough to move back to North Lincolnshire with my wife Vicky and spaniel Ralph.
I chose to join the Navy at 18 and never took a higher education route, I would say I have a non-traditional path to be doing what I do now.
I am the founder and director of Curly’s Athletes, a community and charity event management team, hosting things such as running and triathlon events in the local area and further afield.
In North Lincolnshire that includes The Big Green Scunthorpe 10k, The Brigg Poppy 10k and numerous events from Normanby Hall.
I’m also a trustee of Curly’s Athletes Foundation, supporting people to get more active. This involves supporting our amazing volunteer coaches to deliver free athletics coaching for kids at our incredible Quibell Park athletics track in Scunthorpe.
Currently I work on leading physical activity, health and wellbeing in the area. This allows me the privilege to work with amazing teams to support the health of our community.
What brought you to Scunthorpe Tomorrow?
Personally, I think it’s an exciting group and space with a common goal to help develop the Scunthorpe narrative and I would encourage anyone with a connection to the area to get involved.
I’m passionate about the area and feel we have lot of opportunities to showcase more what we are about, create opportunities, show what we can do and bring to life our history and culture.
I want us to celebrate who we are and be proud of the area, recognise its journey, create more opportunities for the future and encourage more people to live and invest here.
It is truly a great place to live, work and grow.
What are you looking to achieve from your involvement?
Bringing people together in a positive space and bringing like-minded people together, with a common goal to do good.
I don’t know exactly what that will mean just yet, but the journey is the exciting part. Real change comes from good conversations, a common goal and then finding those opportunities.
I have a huge passion for the health and wellbeing of our community, so I would really like to contribute towards enabling our community to live better for longer.
What do you see as the main opportunities for our area in the next few years?
I think continuing to retain and attract talent to the area is a key opportunity, we’ve some great education establishments, talented young people and great businesses.
Somewhere amongst that, potentially represents more ways for us to grow or attract talent locally.
Stepping into new tech in the area would be exciting, through data, AI or green tech.
Creating a space to bring this out of the traditional ‘city’ space and showcasing us as a great home for enterprise.
And of course, creating more active communities, creating opportunities for all to be active and well.
What’s your top recommendation to any visitor to North Lincolnshire?
We’ve loads of great things to visit; the Visit North Lincolnshire website has a good collection of these. We have great parks and country estates, superb leisure facilities to get active in, superb dining, some surprising historical points, and of course events… some of which I’m fortunate to help organise through Curly’s Athletes.
Randomly I also have an additional passion for palaeontology and archology, so you may be surprised about the number of fossils, artifacts and Roman settlements in the area!
Areas of Expertise
Event management, running your own business, physical activity and health sectors, people development, operational roles.
Scunthorpe Tomorrow is a network of people who are passionate about Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire. Through building on our strengths, we are committed to helping deliver a better future for our community.