HIRE CENTRES - Key Persons
Angela first joined Plantool Ltd in June 2001 having come from a financial background. Angela started her career working for Midland Bank back in 1980 after which she had several years break while her children were small returning to the world of work for a local company who had dealings with chemical waste management and precious metal reclamation as a book-keeper. Angela then moved on to an international company who manufactured Polyurethane and Epoxy Resins for the construction industry once again as their book-keeper. Finally Angela found a home at Plantool initially to run the office with the then part-time help of one of the director's and co-owner of Plantool, Mrs Margaret Webb.
Plantool was a much smaller place in those days having only three depots at Leamington Spa, Daventry and Warwick. Plantool has since doubled in size, now having six depots and a nice new Head Office suite, and now Angela is responsible for all of the day to day running of the Head Office with the help of her colleagues Mrs Maria Malin who oversees the Sales Ledger and Miss Ellie Lake who oversees the Purchase Ledger.
Darren joined Plantool in 1998 when the company was still quite small and there were only two depots, located in Daventry and Warwick. Darren's previous jobs varied from being a window fitter in London to a Team Leader within a factory environment before joining Plantool as a Depot Driver in Daventry. He then moved on to become the Hire Desk Assistant helping customers to hire from our range of equipment and swiftly moved on to become the Depot Manager.
Darren's next role was Plantool's Business Development Manager. In this position at our head office, he combined his extensive local knowledge with his years of experience with our equipment to promote sales across all six of our depots.
His expertise is now in use in Kettering where he is Depot Manager.
Dave started in the plant industry from school and was offered an apprenticeship with a local company repairing earthmovers and dump trucks. Dave finished his apprenticeship and went into plant hire business as a plant fitter for a period of around 10 years. Due to the company selling up Dave left the hire business and returned in 2004 to start work at Plantool where he started at the Daventry depot as a fitter. Dave with his vast experience was then asked to start mentoring new young staff and has developed 3 apprentices. Dave has progressed to become Plantool`s plant manager where he looks after a small team performing repairs, breakdowns and LOLER inspections.
Mark joined Plantool Ltd in June 2005 after Millennium Hire was acquired by Plantool.
Mark has over 23 years experience in the hire industry having started as a delivery driver for Midway Hire Centre when he was still in his teens, Mark then progressed steadily from being a Workshop Fitter, Hire Desk Assistant and then onto the Depot Manager whilst still at Midway. Mark then felt like changing tack entirely and left the tool hire industry to become a Bar Manager, but this wasn't quite Mark, so he started working for Millennium Tool Hire on his days off and then was asked to take over as the Depot Manager when Plantool bought Millennium Tool Hire.
Mark has since developed the Stratford Depot, so much so, that the Depot has moved premises and doubled in size.
Mark is currently working towards gaining his qualification in IOSH (Institution of Occupational Safety & Health) and has also completed The Management & Leadership Programme for the Hire Industry together with his IPAF Operators Training whilst at Plantool.
Job Titles:
- Purchasing and Technical Manager
Nigel joined Plantool Ltd in July 2002 having worked for a Nissan dealership and a small tool hire company in Coventry. He seized the chance to further his experience with the much larger role of assistant manager of the Warwick branch; and was promoted to Depot Manager in 2010.
Nigel has since moved to the Nuneaton branch where he now works as Purchasing and Technical Manager.
Following Plantool's commitment to training, Nigel is currently working towards achieving his NEBOSH National General Certificate. Nigel has also completed many other training courses whilst at Plantool, including Safe Hire Accreditation, Health & Safety Management, Niftylift Access Platforms Schematics and Build Systems, Rasta Abrasive Wheel Sections 4, 8 & 9 and Ambirad Indirect Heaters Maintenance and Operating Skills to name but a few.
Ben Jones started working for his fathers firm Handi Hire as a small child, going to work with his father on a Saturday morning, folding the invoices and putting them in envelopes ready to post. When he was old enough he moved to work in the yard at the events and site services division on Saturdays and in school holidays, a job that he enjoyed and continued to work for out of hours and at weekends once he had started full time in 1996 as a trainee fitter in Long Eaton's central workshops.
He progressed to running his own workshop at Coalville depot before moving on to to fill in at various depots in various roles. He left the family firm in 1999 aged 21 bound for Australia to work for Kennard's Hire. He stayed with Kennard's for three years and built up a wealth of knowledge and experience having worked in over 20 branches but decided it was time to settle down and returned to the UK in late 2002.
After a brief spell at The Hire Supply Company he was offered the managers job at Warwick which he snapped up as he was keen to return to tool hire. He ran Warwick successfully for 3 years before moving to Lutterworth to get a new depot off the ground. In April 2007 he was promoted to Area Manager and in May the company opened their new depot in Nuneaton which fell into his area. In the July he was promoted to Operations Manager in charge of all six branches. He was asked to join the board in late 2009 as Operations Director and became MD in September 2011.
Previous MD and company's founder Rodger Webb retired in May 2013 after a management buyout deal with Ben. Since then the company has moved into its new flagship head office depot in Daventry, relocated the Stratford and Nuneaton depots into bigger more modern premises and become an approved IPAF, PASMA and IOSH training centre. Also the company achieved its Safehire accreditation in 2015.