George Rafferty: A man with all kinds of energy

Oct 19 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

George Rafferty is the voice of the North East's fast-growing oil sector, which is bringing thousands of jobs to the region. But Peter McCusker discovers he still harbours dreams of becoming an entrepreneur.

AFTER just a few days as a 19-year-old police cadet George Rafferty realised he was not cut out for the job.

“I had always fancied being a police officer as it seemed like a varied and interesting career, but I quickly realised it was going to be too restrictive for me,” he says.

“I like to be able to think independently and wanted a career that would give me the opportunity to do things a bit differently.”

In the intervening 35-plus years Rafferty has satisfied these desires in a variety of business management and business development roles. But to his mind there is something missing from his CV.

“I have enjoyed my career immensely and in that time I have set up businesses and run businesses for other people. But my biggest regret is that I have not had the idea myself that would allow me set up a business, and for that business to be successful. I just wish I had had that inspirational idea.”

However, Rafferty is not short of ideas as is evident from his achievements at NOF Energy. When he joined it had 170 members who were exclusively based in the North East. Rafferty has changed all of that since being appointed chief executive in 2005 and its membership now stands at 340, with Rafferty planning to increase this further to 400 within the next few years.

And he says the work it has done has helped generate over £50m of orders in the last three years for its members.

It has also relocated offices from Washington to new premises on the Mandale Business Park at Belmont Durham and established links with like-minded partner organisations in eight countries.

“One of my goals on taking the job was to turn us from a regional body to national body. Our focus will always be here in the North East but we now have members in every region in the UK.”

Rafferty has run into some opposition over this stance with one member recently questioning his drive to increase its national profile.

But Rafferty counters: “One of the members took me to task recently. He wanted to know why we were no longer just a North East body. But I told him that energy is a global business and we should not restrict ourselves to the North East.

“And our national and international profile is helping to secure work for our members here in the region.”

NOF works to promote its members in the global energy market, through comprehensive business support services as well as organising networking events in the North East which provide opportunities for the supply chain to interact with key players in the sector.

Rafferty continues: “NOF Energy provides a voice for the region’s supply chain that is heard globally and encourages operators to look to this region for its expertise.”

“We are a business development organisation not a trade association. Our focus is on working with our members to help them achieve their business objectives.

“Every single day we are working with our members. There are not enough hours in the day for us with membership doubling in three years.”