Board

Board members are:

Bruce Field - Chairman

Bruce has been resident in Golspie for 35 years, he is married with two grown up children and has been retired since 1991. Bruce has a BSc in Civil Engineering from Edinburgh and served an apprenticeship with the Scottish Gas Board followed by a number of road construction projects in England and Wales including the M5, M50 and M62 motorways. Latterly he joined Sutherland County Council as Chief Assistant Maintenance Engineer, continuing in a similar position in the Highland Regional Council. He is a keen golfer and was on the Golspie Golf Club committee for 13 years, including 2 as captain. Other organisations that Bruce has been or is involved with are: Sutherland Sports Council, Sutherland Access Forum, Mobius Computer Recycling, Sutherland Walkers’ Group (current chairman), Golspie & District Community Association and past member of the Institute of Highways and Transportation (chairman for 1 year). He is also interested in chess, photography and stamp collecting.
 

Tom Robinson

Tom Robinson is by profession an Instrumentation & Control Engineer.
During his 32 year career he has worked in design, construction and maintenance within the petrochemical and oil and gas industry in both the UK and the Middle East. Prior to retiring from BP in 2002 he was employed as Head of Das Maintenance with the Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company in the UAE. He now runs a small croft in East Sutherland. Having first hand experience of the inadvertent environmental pollution legacy produced in the past during major process plant upsets he is an ardent advocate for clean renewable energy technology. Tom has been actively involved and supported the Wind Farm project since its conception. He is particularly keen to see investors from the local community purchase a stake in the KWEL business and subsequently profit from the operations.
 

Colin Lawrence

Colin lives in Ross-shire with his wife and two dogs.  Having owned a house on the Black Isle since 2000, he moved there permanently in 2006 following his retirement after almost 40 years in local government in England.  During his last 10 years he was the Personnel Manager of a local authority in Oxfordshire with responsibility for employment policies, industrial relations, recruitment, training and health and safety.  As a Chief Officer, he was involved in the overall management of the authority, and worked directly with the Council and its Committees. Colin has taken a particular interest in the development of Kilbraur from its construction stage, and approached the Board following the Co-op’s presentation at Rogart in 2008 to offer his services for a vacancy that existed on the Board at that time.  He was co-opted onto the Board in October 2008 and was formally elected as a Director at the AGM in June 2009.

John Maclennan Whitfield

John was born in Malaysia in 1964, with family roots in Ross-shire. He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1987 with a degree in civil engineering and has designed and built many and varied facilities, including dams, roads, bridges and towers and been responsible for multimillion-pound projects both in the UK and overseas (Botswana and Abu Dhabi).He has spent the last six years helping to decommission the nuclear research establishment at Dounreay. During this time he was a key member of the successful and technically challenging Shaft Isolation Project. In preparation for life beyond Dounreay, he completed a degree module course in Sustainable Energy last year and has developed a detailed understanding of renewable energy systems, including wind and solar generation. John has a keen interest in promoting local renewable energy projects. He is actively working on domestic energy conservation and micro-generation and on the development of detailed proposals for an exciting community-based project associated with Brora Primary School (the Healthy Hut and Biozone).

Graham Strachan

Graham went to school in Inverness before graduating from Edinburgh University. He managed several projects in the central belt before returning to the Highlands to work on community and economic development projects - initially as Depute Director for Ross & Cromarty and laterly as an Economic Development, Development and Ward Manager with the Highland Council. He was involved with several communities negotiating with wind farm developers. In 2008 he was co-opted on to the board of the Great Glen Energy Co-op, this position being confirmed at its first AGM in 2009. He spent 10 years on the North and South of Scotland Electricity Consumers Committees and is a trustee on Inverness Harbour Board.

Graham Phillips

Graham is married to Scilla and lives in Sutherland at Littleferry.  He is a Director of local consultancy Phillips Aitchison Ltd and has an unusual combination of experience which he would like to make available to the community, ranging from international big business to locally based community projects.  

On the corporate side Graham has spent nearly 30 years consulting at Main Board level on a wide variety of topics.  This means he can offer a very broadly based professional background to the Kilbraur Co-op.  Work has included corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, turning round a multinational manufacturing group, auditing an international bank, commercial tendering, and setting up systems for governance, risk management and compliance. 

Experience with community projects includes the recent feasibility study for a new Community Centre in Dornoch, a current feasibility study for the NW Sutherland Geopark, training for voluntary organisations, chairing a Chamber of Commerce initiative to set up a CCTV scheme in an area suffering from street crime, and setting up the first community run housing for local needs scheme in the UK.

Before going independent in 1992, Graham worked for Ernst & Whinney, PWC and PA Consulting Group. He is a member of the Institute of Directors.

George Potts 

I am an active member of my community, bringing together 100 local children from Moss Side in Manchester for a charity event day which was the culmination of months of planning in conjunction with the charity ReachOut!, with whom I have a valued relationship. I have also been awarded the ‘Leadership in Action’ award for my work in a local Barnardo’s charity store and look to consistently support my local community.

I am a keen supporter of renewable energy, taking part in the 2009 NewNet CleanTech Summit, personally visiting our wind-farm (or turbine!), am a member of both the Great-Glen and Energy Prospects Co-operatives whilst also actively supporting the development of tidal energy technology across the UK.

I have had practical experience in the fields of law at Freshfields, property financing at WP Carey in Shanghai, as well as managerial experience through starting my own Limited Investment company at 17 and winning Most Innovative Business Idea in the regional finals for a business I set up at 15 to sell eco-friendly garden products. I earned my Private Pilot’s Licence in 2008 and enjoy golf, sailing and football.