To reach the very pinnacle of one's profession is achieved by very few and in becoming a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers, our Technical Director Rob Weeden has done just that.

To put this into context, less than 6% of IStructE's 21,000 UK and Ireland members are currently Fellows and what makes Rob's recognition even more remarkable is less than 10 of those actively work in Structural Steel Contracting businesses like ours.

Rob joined Caunton straight after his A Levels in 1985 and so began his engineering journey with a Caunton apprenticeship. Back then our annual turnover was £3.5m and Rob was part of a very small engineering team. Working diligently towards his professional qualifications, Rob was there at the very start of Caunton's move into Design and Build. Having gained his Associate Membership in 1995, Rob felt there was limited progression within the business and left for a brief spell at a rival company. He did re-join the Caunton Group in 2001, and achieved Chartered Membership in 2003, passing the notorious exam at the first attempt, and scoring one of the highest marks that year. Rob has been our Technical Director since 2008, and over this period he has personally supervised the training of 18 Engineers working towards their own Chartered Membership, as well as overseeing the technical aspects of our journey from a £35m company to a £120m company. Huge congratulations to Rob and let's hope this inspires our current group of engineers to aim for the top.

On attaining his Fellowship Rob commented: "I'm extremely honoured and proud to achieve the highest level of recognition within structural engineering, and I would like to thank everyone at Caunton and within the steel industry who have helped me on this journey. I look forward to continuing to develop all aspects of our engineering skills, from both a business point of view and an individual one by bringing on the next generation of our engineers."