This week, two employees here at IAE begin their well-earned retirement; Carl Walley and Pat Wakefield who have spent the last 22 and 33 years of their career here respectively.
Pat joined IAE in 1989 at the age of 31, where he worked at our Macclesfield Rd site alongside Barry Pointon. Throughout the duration of his 33 year career here at IAE he has undertaken many different roles; including Machine Operative, Robot Operator, Fork Lift Truck Driver and most recently Galvanising Operative. Some of Pat’s time here has also been spent working the night shift to ensure we continue to keep up with the demands of our customers.
On the other hand, Carl joined IAE in 2002 as a Maintenance Engineer and has continued to be so right up until the present day. During his 22 years at IAE he worked his way up in the Maintenance department to become Shift Supervisor and took responsibility for leading the team in installing, maintaining and repairing all of the machines across our 38 acre site. Both Pat and Carl have highlighted the huge changes they have seen during their time at IAE, with the most noticeable being the move from Macclesfield Road in Leek and all other satellite sites, to our current site (Mossfield Road).
In particular, Pat recalls the changes in scale he seen when he moved to Mossfield Road. From working in one of IAE’s factories where just over 50 employees were located, to moving to Mossfield Road where there are over 450 employees working all from one site. As part of these changes, Pat reflects fondly on the days before Mossfield Road and when the company was in its infancy and starting the growth journey. Before the days of technology, wagons would be planned and loaded manually and so it was always a great achievement for Pat and the team to get lorries fully loaded and sent down the road to our customers.
For Carl, his greatest highlights with IAE have come from watching his colleagues progress, as he has seen many of them begin their career at IAE as an apprentice before moving into full time engineering roles. The satisfaction of solving problems and repairing machinery is something like no other.
Whilst Pat and Carl will retire from their day jobs, their days are set to be anything but empty. Carl plans to spend his retirement by taking lots of holidays! Motorhome trips, holidays to Indonesia to visit his daughter and mini breaks with the grandchildren- it will be anything but quiet! For Pat, he will be enjoying a slightly steadier pace of life, spent by undertaking lots of walks and looking after his pigeons which he keeps for a hobby.
Both Pat and Carl have alluded to how much they will miss their colleagues and the people they work with and we sure will miss them both to, but wish them both all the best in their retirement! On behalf of everyone at IAE, we wish Carl and Pat a very long, happy and healthy retirement spent doing everything they love and we extend our thanks to both employees for their hard work and contribution to IAE over the years.
