Direct from our directors: Howel Morris

The ‘Direct from our directors’ series continues, following our recent chat with Howel Morris about his career, what keeps him excited about engineering and his words of wisdom for those in the industry.

Howel joined Rodgers Leask in 2017, before being appointed director in 2023. Responsible for the geo-environmental teams in Bristol and Longbridge, and a chartered geologist with more than 20 years in the industry, Howel has worked on a significant number of projects in multiple sectors for both private and public sector clients. He has particular experience in land regeneration, overseeing many complex, multidisciplinary brownfield projects bringing clients, contractors and various specialists together.

Why did you choose a career in engineering?

I’ve always been interested in how things work. Growing up in North Wales there was a lot around regeneration, post steelwork, post mining, and as well as having a father who was a planning officer, I always used to think about and look at how things worked and added that to regeneration sites and bringing things back to new. That’s why I chose engineering.

What are you most proud of in your career to date?

A lot of the legacy projects and the ones I’ve been able to work on for a long period of time. You can go and look back at them now in their current flourishing form – having taken them from a derelict industrial site to something that is occupied either with jobs or houses and has some nature flourishing in it. From steelworks to former mining areas, collieries, etc. I like to go back and look at those.

What is the best piece of advice you have received?

The best piece of advice I’ve received is more relevant to my position now, which is ‘do for a pound what any old fool will do for ten’. I see that as one where you try and challenge the status quo a little bit. It causes you to try and drive innovation into a project and I really like starting schemes with that point; don’t just accept what it handed down to you as what should be done with particular problems. Try and find a solution that is elegant and hopefully effective.

What single piece of advice would you give to someone starting out in your profession?

I would talk to them about grabbing every piece of experience they possibly could whilst they’re young. Latch onto any projects, try and understand it, ask questions. But also make mistakes while you’re young because there’s plenty of time in the future to bring all those bits of experience together – but there’s not so much freedom and enthusiasm as you get older. You maybe don’t quite get the time and freedom to make the choices that you do in your first ten years in a career.

Who do you admire most in the engineering industry?

I’d say on the client side there are definitely people that have shaped businesses that we have been fortunate enough to work for and support. Closer to home within Rodgers Leask, one of the former directors here, Lawrence. He was always an optimist, he always liked looking for a way of being able to say yes to the client or form a solution where there was a problem.

Do you have a life philosophy?

I’m not too sure it’s a philosophy but I’m definitely an optimist and I don’t know whether that comes from being Welsh and watching the rugby team play – you always have to believe your side can win even when you know the odds will tell you different. So, I’m definitely on the optimistic side of things.

What do you think your best quality is?

My best quality in the work world is probably being able to conceptualise the problem, the challenge, and then think carefully of the specialists, the clever people, who can help me with that problem. Then bringing a team of them together to find a good and workable solution to problems and projects.

What do you do in your spare time?

I’d like to play a lot more sport but unfortunately these days my spare time is taken up with a busy family life – a five-year-old, a nine-year-old and a wife that works full time as well – so it’s just trying to keep my head above water really and have fun when I can.

What three items are you taking to a deserted island?

That immediately throws up questions straight away. Is there any infrastructure? Is there any signal? Assuming not, trying to be as modern as possible, take a solar panel, take some kind of mechanism for cooking food without necessarily always needing to make a fire, and a very long book.

What keeps you excited about the engineering industry?

What keeps me excited about engineering is the fact that it keeps evolving. There’s always new products, new ideas coming out to help you solve problems. By carrying ideas around and then being presented with a problem, you’re able to move one solution to fix another problem and you get the opportunity tie things together and form cross pollination. I really enjoy that aspect of the work.

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