Tom Crompton

Jan 16 2007 By Evening Gazette

Area director - South (Tees Valley/County Durham), Learning and Skills Council North East.

What did you want to be when you were young?
An architect - but the grammar school which I attended wouldn't let me do technical drawing - academic stream! Thank goodness schools aren't like that any more.

How much was your first pay packet and what did you spend it on?
£14 a week, in the student holidays as a clerk but weeks later I got a job cleaning buses on permanent night shift and had to take a cut in money when I started work as a teacher.

What's your dream job, other than your current one?
Artistic director role for the Royal Shakespeare Company to produce Hamlet.

What's the best piece of business advice you have received?
The moment you stop learning, about yourself and the business, you will be dead in the water.

And the worst?
Advice still prevalent in the public sector, spend your budget or you'll lose it.

What is your philosophy when it comes to business?
I am a believer of the Investor in People standard. Our staff are our greatest asset.

What are your hobbies?
I can't survive a day unless I'm reading a novel.  I love the theatre, and I support Sunderland AFC.

Does anything scare you and if so what?
Sunderland getting promoted to the Premier League, after the amount of stick I got last time.  

What would you choose as your epitaph?
You can't beat Spike Milligan's gravestone epitaph - "I told you I was sick".