He was right, I was.
And now I am one of those annoying adults who always asks “WHY”? I am forever curious. Why can’t that be done? Why can’t we do it like this? Being inquisitive has given me a tortuous career so far and my journey has been one of cliché peaks and troughs.
Being somewhat undecided to do with a career whilst in my teens, I initially just leaned into what I was good at: maths/physics and socialising. I was drawn to the glamour of the RAF after joining my Grandfather at a veteran event from his National Service days, and I was gifted with an early opportunity at becoming a pilot. I however had to concede that fitting into a pre-defined mould might not suit my personality, so I pivoted toward industry after graduating with a Masters Degree in Engineering from Newcastle University.
“What’s a drilling engineer?” I asked the recruiter at BP after my assessment centre for becoming a subsea engineer concluded. I had no idea, but instead of advancing into what I applied for, I was offered a graduate scheme at BP as a drilling engineer. It was awesome. I spent my early BP career in a mixture of offshore and onshore roles and was fortunate to see a number of overseas operations from US Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, Asia and of course home – both West of Shetland and the North Sea.
8th February 2014 I met Wonder Woman – Danielle Flecher-Herd, now Flecher-Horn since we got married 18 months later. Not long after getting married, I had a seminal moment of realisation when my wife told me that she was pregnant as I was about to head offshore to a drilling rig. I had asked “why can’t we do it like this” a number of times over the last few years as a drilling engineer, and the window to act on it might be closing. So I acted.
I started my first business “DeltaTek” to develop solutions to some of the “whys” I’d asked over recent years. DeltaTek has been eye opening as to what is possible as a high performing team, taking ideas from seeds to market leading disruptive techniques for well construction. Leading the business through the acquisition by Expro helped show me how deep I can dig emotionally to support a goal.
Whilst exploring life as an entrepreneur, I was also on another developmental journey, on a steep learning curve living life as a dad. My wife and I’s four children all arrived whilst DeltaTek was going through start-up and early scale-up phases. Now I have prodigés who ask me “WHY”?
So, do you want to connect and learn more? Why not?
