Norweb sees bright future with Durrell

Bob Durrell, Norweb's engineering manager, is one of that breed of IT professionals who has a hectic day, every day.

With his background in maths and computers, it was perhaps inevitable that his career path should follow the silicon road. He read mathematics at Bath University. 'In the late 1960s computing was an area that was an expanding profession, but my interest in this area goes back to when I was at university,' he says.

Starting his career at what later became known as ICL, Durrell moved to regional electricity company Norweb as his first assignment. At first he thought it would be a temporary move, but Norweb offered him a job, and 27 years later he's still there.

At Norweb his first duties were to deal with billing systems. At that time all IT functions were concerned with billing systems, he says. He later became computer operations manager at Norweb Computer Services.

While Norweb may have been associated with electricity bills in the past, like most other regional electricity companies (Recs) these days, it has a finger in many pies. And many of these pies have little to do with the electricity industry.

Norweb sells gas, and provides telecoms and other non-electrical services.

A year ago Norweb was bought by North West Water and this was the catalyst which formed United Utilities, the super utility supplying electricity and water in the north west.

Norweb Communications was formed in 1994 as a public telecoms network operator. It employs 200 staff. As engineering manager, Durrell has responsibility for Norweb Communications and manages more than 160 technical, clerical and industrial staff.

'We are like a BT,' he explains, 'but, of course, a lot smaller. Although we can compete nationally, we cater predominantly to a localised niche in the north west. As well as public switching, we provide Centrex facilities management, leased lines, ISDN and other bespoke telecoms products.'

Durrell oversees the development of Norweb Communications' fibre optic and digital microwave networks for large business users. This market is growing enormously fast, he says. 'Customers these days need bandwidth and we are providing the backbone for this. New technologies that exploit this medium, such as the Internet, will not be effectively used by old copper systems, in the future.'

When he is not preparing telecoms systems for the next century, Durrell enjoys music, reading, walking, cricket, crosswords and spending time with his grandson.