Clyde Space

My Job at Clyde Space

I coordinate all stages of our Business Development process from Enquiry handling, through Customer Acquisition, to Customer Service and After-Sales. I work closely with Craig and Steve to ensure we develop our portfolio (in terms of products and services offered) in line with customer and market requirements, and with John to ensure we manage our active projects in an efficient manner. I also look after our marketing activities - website, hard copy, event management and so on.

I'm the new boy around here, having only joined at the beginning of October. I'm really excited to have joined the team. I was born, brought up and educated in Scotland, and I've worked here since 1994 yet contributed very little to the economy except in airport charges and taxes (most recently I've been working for a US company looking after Nordic Distribution Activities). Clyde Space is giving me the opportunity to invest some of the experience and skills I have collected over the years in large organisations in a small, dynamic, local company with very large aspirations.

Qualifications

B.Eng (Hons) Electronic & Electrical Engineering, 1991, University of Strathclyde

Life Before Clyde Space

Previous to Clyde Space, I spent 18 years working for a number of companies in the semiconductor industry - mainly in commercial roles (Sales and Account Management), but after University I did start out (a long time ago!) as a Design Engineer.

Most recently, I spent 9 years working for ON Semiconductor. I joined ON in 2000, only a year or so after they separated from their parent company, Motorola SPS (which was later spun out of Motorola as Freescale Semiconductor). At ONSemi, I was heavily involved with the distribution network - working mainly with off-the-shelf type products, although I occasionally entertained some product development co-ops. ONSemi had a particularly tough time during the early part of their existence - the big dot.com bubble burst in early 2001 and took a large part of forecasted revenue with it. We had a challenging time helping to keep things ticking over - however the business came out of the downturn stronger than ever, and the company has continued to do very well. Today, ONSemi are very successful in power electronics (as well as some other stuff) - which is very relevant to our EPS business.

Prior to ONSemi I spent 6 years at Philips Semiconductors (now NXP). I had a really great time at Philips Semis - and had the benefit of working with, and learning from some remarkably talented people. Philips was like a University of Business for me - it's a real shame that they disappeared up the spout of Private Equity. Have a read through David Manner's blog (look specifically for the NXP and Freescale tags), some of his comments about Private Equity are very cutting and very amusing.

On completion of my degree, my first job was with a company called GEC Plessey Semiconductors. I was initially working on their ill fated FPGA product, and then when that line died (it was very badly marketed IMO, it was a technically excellent product), I moved over to working on signal processing and video compression devices. Plessey were acquired by Mitel, who then spun the semiconductor division out to become Zarlink. This was the only period in my life spent not living in Scotland. Maybe my experience in Swindon tainted my views!

Outside Clyde Space

I have a number of guilty pleasures that I enjoy outside the work environment (and occasionally inside the work environment too!). I do my level best to play golf weekly, rain, hail or shine. My handicap is 14 - which means I can sometimes complete a whole round without embarrassing myself. I'm a reasonably proficient skier, although with a young family (my kids are 7 and 5) I've recently struggled to find the time to satisfy my cravings for the piste. I am a big fan of our national drink (in moderation, of course). And also our other national drink (also in moderation).

I do enjoy tinkering with alternative operating systems on my home PCs. My current OS of choice is Ubuntu Linux. I'm not completely opposed to Windows, like a lot of Linux users (zealots?) tend to be, however I like the spirit and support of the Linux community (and the free-ness of the software!!). When it does come to MS Windows and Office, I know my way around pretty well too, and often find myself acting as guru for other folk's spreadsheet and database woes.

Other Info

I'm on LinkedIn here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ritchielogan