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My first post introduced the Yarnton, UK, NMR probe repair shop. This time, please allow me to introduce the shop management and technical staff: that’s me.

Running the shop and doing the repairs is manageable for one person with the present average workload. We do plan to expand beyond room temperature probes to also repair cryogenic and eventually other probe types, so the workload will grow. So may the shop. But for now, here I am.

I joined Varian 4.5 years ago, coming from an NMR producer called Oxford Instruments. I’ve been in NMR for about 15 years, so this has been a natural progression for me.

I’m an electronics qualified engineer. Early in my career I did an apprenticeship with a company called Marconi Instruments, where I studied telecommunications engineering—effectively RF electronics. I worked in telecoms quite a few years both in the UK and overseas, then I joined a company called Resonance Instruments that made benchtop NMR systems. That was using the same RF knowledge, since a spectrometer is effectively a radio transmitter and receiver—essentially the same technology. I looked after writing all of the build and test folders for them, the calibration procedures, the service manuals… It was a small company, so we all wore many hats. They were later purchased by Oxford Instruments. Two years after that, I joined Varian, now Agilent.

The last couple years, I’ve been team leader for the UK and Ireland customer service organization, looking after the field engineers. The theory was I could do that while also mending probes, but the time just was not there. So I now will focus on the probe shop, and hand off the service organization.

I planned out the shop space over the last 3 months, and have kept tabs on everything that’s gone on—placement of internal partitions, nitrogen and air supplies… I’ve ordered the right type of benches and desks. When it’s all done, I plan to take some photographs and post an update so that people can see the facility. Keep an eye on this channel; there’s more to come!