BusinessCar’s Paul Barker puts 13 testing questions to another victim
1. What was your first job?
A petrol pump attendant at an Esso garage. But I called myself a petroleum fuel-injection engineer.
2. What was your first company car?
Golf GTI.
3. What did you listen to on your last car journey?
A CD by our new CEO, Pat Burtis. Pat is a talented, travelling singer-songwriter, although he doesn’t get much time to do so these days.
4. What one thing do you wish you could do better?
I have played a lot of rugby and I wish I had been good enough to play for Ireland.
5. What’s your biggest achievement?
Leading the GreenRoad team that signed huge contracts with both the MoD and FirstGroup within days of each other in 2009.
6. Who are your role models?
Michael O’Leary of Ryanair – a controversial figure but a true Irishman who says it like it is.
7. What’s the stupidest thing you’ve done?
I accidentally switched off the engine of a small plane I was flying last year. Fortunately I realised immediately.
8. What was the most hotly debated topic at your last meeting?
Whether traditional telematics has any value any more.
9. What’s in your garage?
A very large astronomical telescope that I take outside to observe heavenly bodies. In an alternative universe I could have been Professor Brian Cox.
10. What’s the worst thing about your job?
Travelling to far-flung parts of the UK, particularly reaching remote depots when it is dark, raining and windy.
11. What one law would you make or change?
Mandatory driver re-testing.
12. What keeps you awake at night?
Absolutely nothing keeps me awake after a pint of Guinness.
13. Who is your ideal celebrity date?
Kristin Scott-Thomas!
