The most important factors in training are the skills and experience of the trainer. At Lucid, all of our trainers are very highly qualified experts within fibre optics, communications cabling and their specialist fields, with many years of industry experience. They are reliable, friendly and patient. Training professionals who provide not only the best possible training, but also technical support that is second to none!
Furthermore, our trainers are long-term members of staff, involved in developing and updating “their” courses. They are not just contract trainers who come in to go through the motions, although we now have the flexibility of some trainers we use on a contract basis as their situation and requirements changed from previously working full-time for us. Our staff are rightly proud of the quality of training they deliver as expert Lucid trainers.
In total our staff have a combined experience of communications cabling (both fibre optic and copper) of over 150 years, each bringing their extra special skill-sets with them. Topics such as performing field dispersion measurements may seem relatively new to many fibre test engineers, but our trainers were involved in field Polarisation Mode Dispersion measurements and report writing in 1995, and Chromatic Dispersion measurements some years before this.
Lucid Trainers & Consultants
John Colton, BSc (Hons):
Technical Director
John’s background is in optical fibre instrumentation, measurements, calibration & troubleshooting. He has worked with most fibre measurement instruments over the years, and is an expert on OTDR, PMD and chromatic dispersion measurements, not to mention a few less well known fibre measurements!
John is also a director of the Fibreoptic Industry Association (FIA) with responsibility for training and joint responsibility for qualifications. He is an invited member of the National Advisory Council for ICT, and a member of the Telecommunications Sector Action Group (TSAG) organised by e-skills. John is currently working more on skills and industry qualifications for various organisations, primarily the FIA, City & Guilds and the OCN.
Recently John was retained as an expert witness in a major telecoms dispute that has now been successfully resolved. He is currently retained as an Examiner/Moderator by City and Guilds for the development of their 3667, 3666, 3662 and 3663 programmes. John has also assisted in the development of several awards, at different levels, through the Open Awards and Open College Network (OCN), for both the cabling industry and the ICT industry.
Alistair McMeekin, BSc(Hons): Technical Trainer
Alistair came into fibre optics from a background in IT cabling and datacoms networking. From very early in his career Alistair has been involved in training, gaining experience with a wide variety of training development and delivery including both conventional and online training materials. Alistair first started working as a specialist fibre optics trainer in 1998, and has been responsible for course development and delivery in both fibre optics and copper communicationss cabling for several employers, gaining a wide ranging experience of different industry sectors. Alistair has worked on course development and qualifications in a wide range of fibre optics fields, but in particular was responsible for developing one of the first fibre optics training courses aimed at the umbilical cable industry with specialist subsea cables.
Annette Colton, MSc, PhD: Director, Internal Verifier
Annette is involved in the development of our advanced courses and consultancy work. Her Master’s degree is from the Danish Technical University where she won several scholarships. Her PhD thesis was on work carried out at the prestigious European JET Joint Undertaking project near Oxford, on secondment from Risø the Danish National Laboratory.
Annettes background is in experimental plasma physics, radiation transfer, and Earth observation by satellites for environmental monitoring. She has authored several peer-reviewed journal and conference papers on these subjects, much of this work having involved mathematical and computer modelling. These talents have been applied to several of Lucid’s client consultancy projects involving the mathematical modelling of optical and fibre optic problems, as well as laser and LED safety where Annette has been working with Geoff for many years.
In addition, Annette has taken on the Internal Verifier role for both Open Awards and City & Guilds, and most recently she been developing our new NVQ style qualifications and our Open Awards qualification scheme.
Other specialists and former trainers
In addition to our current trainers, we also have an agreement with a few of our former long-standing trainers, to work as consultants for us on projects requiring their still specific expert knowledge. In addition, you may come across their names in blog posts and course feedback forms, and they have all contributed to the ongoing development of Lucid, our expertise and our portfolio of courses, so we have included their biographies below:
William Thompson, BSc (Hons): Technical Trainer
William has an extensive background in training worldwide, and is the lead trainer on several of our programmes aimed at getting trainees from challenging backgrounds into work as fibre installers. William has also taken on our duct installation courses, and is working with Annette on the development of our port-folio based qualifications.
IN addition, William is an expert in communications training and coaching – the person-to-person variety rather than telecoms – and other types of personal development, management and team building skills. This field is Williams first love, and what he is committed to developing now. Please get in touch if you would like more information about this.
Geoff Davies, Professor:
Senior Consultant.
Geoff started his career as a research scientist in ICI, working on the electrical properties of organic solids. He then moved to the University of Leeds, first as a physics lecturer, then reader and finally Professor of Polymer Science. His experimental interests include mechanical and electrical properties of polymers, side-chain liquid crystalline polymers for non-linear optic applications and ionically conductive polymers. He has also worked with laser-doppler velocimetry. At Lucid, Geoff is working on new training courses; consultancy projects; and forging closer links with universities.
Amongst his first work for Lucid was developing our LED safety training course together with Annette. This course was well-received by industry and has helped to highlight the emerging hazards with high-brightness LEDs. Geoff is an expert on many aspects of laser and LED safety, and wrote an article on LED safety and hazards for Photonics Spectra magazine. This article has been received many favourable comments and has been recommended by many people as a reference article on the subject of LED safety and hazards.
Dave Gallivan
Dave has a very wide experience in the communications sector, having been responsible for overhead, underground, internal and external cable installation and testing both in UK and overseas. He has worked with both fibre and copper cables for both telecoms and datacoms applications and has carried out blown fibre installations.
Dave’s career has taken him from hands-on splicing and testing to supervisory, management and training roles, plus some technical sales work for a specialist product manufacturer before joining Lucid as a professional trainer. Having worked as a technical trainer previously, it was nice to hear Dave express his surprise at the quality of the training Lucid deliver and the levels and range of equipment we have for each course.
Steve Dobson
Steve has been in the telecoms/cabling industry for over 45 years, in both installation, project planning and auditing for both copper & fibre optic networks, working for a major national Telecoms provider and reaching the position of top Telemech before joining Lucid.
In addition to his telecoms cabling background, Steve has developed several datacoms training courses and has considerable experience of copper datacoms cabling. Since leaving Lucid on semi-retirement, Steve has worked on providing End-Point Assessment (EPA) services for apprentices.
Peter Rossall, Cert. Ed. (FE):
Peter was our first City & Guilds experts. Prior to joining Lucid, Peter was head of a national communications training centre for 10 years (not BT, the other one in Blandford), and was closely involved in setting up the original City & Guilds fibre optics qualifications and course syllabus. Before turning to training full-time, Peter gained valuable experience installing cables and managing a wide range of installations around the world.
Peter has now retired, after a some very busy and hectic years at the beginning of Lucid. Peter has until recently acted as our internal moderator, for both City and Guilds and Open Awards, but has gradually handed this over to Annette, and must take some of the credit for the outstanding reports we get on our training centre from these respected awarding bodies. Additionally, Peter’s wide-ranging experience in the industry has been a particularly valuable resource to us for developing some of our specialist copper telecoms courses.