Leaving Stadium Plastics

At the end of 2000 I was offered an opportunity to join a company called Omega Plastics in Gateshead. Omega where the market leader in the manufacture of Rapid Cut Tooling, due to their technology, and the way they worked

I was tired of Stadium at this point and it was time for a new challenge, and a little more pay! It was also an opportunity to hook up with a few guys I knew. Paul McMorris, Richard Peacock who where ex-Stadium and Scott Newbegin who was a friend.

Omega was formed from a DTI led visit to Detroit, USA. Many businesses went over to the States and one of them, the Express Group, spotted an opportunity to do a joint venture with Omega USA

Omega had a market niche, great operating principals and employed the best people they could find in their field – I was just lucky! Express Group had a sales formula for success in the UK engineering and Omega grew in a few years from first order to about £ 2 Million turnover.

When I joined it was growing rapidly but it needed someone of my background commercially to bring some consistency to the way they worked. I would say it worked and in 2 years I think we grew the business to about £ 4M

Omega empowered their employees to make decisions and had confidence in our ability. Myself, Rich and Scott would leave home at 5.45am and normally not get home till 7.30pm as we loved the job and travelling together (we spent a few bob at Easington Services, they must miss us)

Some nights we’d work late brokering deals with Omega USA who where 5 hours behind us and have to either sleep on the floor, at work or book a hotel – it used to be fight for the single bed as we’d booked one room for TWO and the other ONE would climb in through the window.

Omega’s success was incredible in my view; they just nailed every part of the business from incoming enquiry to delivery of the product. It had a wonderful image and environment to work, hence the employees gave everything – it was the best decision I ever made, going to work there

Once the business got to £ 4M mark things changed and a plan was put in place to add other companies to Omega and offer a complete turnkey package from design to mass production (Omega was more prototyping) this was a huge mistake on their part and I feel it driven by greed.

There where ten of us who new it wasn’t to work but we could not prevent the Americans being bought out and this new company evolving.

Right from day one it was an expensive nightmare for the investors. The culture of all the separate business’s who joined us where completely different, there where more Directors and Managers than employees. Our right to make decisions where taken away and sales and profits tumbled.

To cut a long story short I left, walked out as I wasn’t willing to put my reputation on the line. I think something like 30 left in the next few months. The company went under a couple of times over the next few years, but for me I was just glad to be out of it – it was the second best decision I ever made, leaving

I had no plan of what I was going to do. I sat in a meeting on the Friday and told the directors of the company what I thought of them and never returned again. I had the job held open for me and they paid me for 3 months, but I would not return.

Within a few days of leaving my Grandmother died, a cousin got married and decided when talking to family to go away for a while. I floated around the Caribbean and USA for a couple of months and came home. I had a call to back to Stadium for double the money I’d left for 3 years earlier but declined.

I decided I would set up my own company manufacturing small injection mouldings and teamed up with now called Kannect Precision Services. My business, which I’m still running is called Solutions-Injection Moulding and is based in Hartlepool.
In the six years of trading we have won ‘Hartlepool’s, Best New Business’ developed over 200 new products for our customers and manufactured over 30 Million components. We’ve achieved ZERO defects status, had no customer complaints and 100% on-time delivery.