One of Grimsby’s oldest family engineering companies now has a fifth generation member at the helm, as it looks to secure a slice of the town’s maritime renaissance.
Royal Navy officer David Bacon has called time on his service to Queen and Country, returning to his roots and the bridge of Bacon Engineering.
He is joined by operations director Darren Glew, with the pair eyeing up the huge opportunities while continuing to invest to make a 19th century business one of choice for 21st century projects.
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“I’m the fifth generation now to be involved in the full time business, it is something that gives me a great sense of pride and honour,” he said.
“I have brought Darren in as operations director - he’s an experienced businessman who has worked in manufacturing and production.
“I’m full of ideas and enthusiasm, but I don’t have that commercial background.”
Completion of a new machine shop is the immediate priority as it will allow the company to operate from a single site, having begun a move from the Kasbah area of Grimsby Docks to South Humberside Industrial Estate three years ago.
“The plan is as a management team and with our technical managers to push the business forward in the coming years,” Mr Bacon said, leaving the Royal Navy as a lieutenant commander having specialised in logistics and data analysis. “There are some really big things happening around here, we see developments happening, and we want to get involved where we can.”
An 18-strong team has kept turnover around the £1.2 million mark in recent years, with the 1899-established business having been an employer of hundreds when engineering was a by-product of a world-famous trawling fleet.
“I want to make Bacon great again, it was huge up to the Seventies, I want to get back to a bigger entity than it has been for the last few decades, and that would mean more jobs and a bigger support function. We are putting blocks in place to build capacity and experience into the business, to help us do that.
“We have got to as far as we could with the resources we have, the £1 million mark is a growth point at which you can’t just do the things the same way to get to the next milestone.”
Recent projects have ranged from intricate gar box reconfigurations to a mock turbine towner for inward investing CWind. The likes of the Stena Line and ABP terminal plan excite, so too Able Marine Energy Park, while it remains focused on food and process operations in the area.
Mr Glew said: “Part of the process now is looking at opportunities - they may not be something we can deliver today, but they give us the opportunity to see how we shape and grow to deliver tomorrow. It is important that David and I have that local knowledge, meet the right people, so they hear about Bacon Engineering as a modern firm with a modern outlook, that has that proud family depth.
“The potential is phenomenal, and one of the challenges will be being quite strategic in who else we work with.”
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