Bill Ward, Managing Director, Mill Garages

Jan 11 2010 by Iain Laing, The Journal

A familiar face on TV, Bill Ward now owns the business he has worked for for the last 30 years. Peter McCusker reports.

The Questionnaire

What car do you drive?
Volvo XC60.

What’s your favourite restaurant?
Café 21.

Who or what makes you laugh?
My youngest son Jake, he gets certain words wrong – Jakeisms, we call them!

What’s your favourite book?
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens. "We forge the chains we wear in life."

What’s your favourite film?
Godfather II – Francis Ford Coppola.

What was the last album you bought?
The Last Waltz by The Band – on vinyl!

What’s your ideal job, other than your current one?
Managing one of the great hotels in a major city, such as the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

If you had a talking parrot, what’s the first thing you’d teach it to say?
Now is the time to choose Volvo!

What’s your greatest fear?
Heights.

What’s the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
The FD at Inchcape plc, who were not endeared to Volvo, told me "that if I loved the Volvo business so much, buy it" – so I did.

Worst business advice?
Any bad advice becomes good advice if you learn from it.

What’s your poison?
John Smith’s at my local.

What newspaper do you read, other than The Journal?
The Daily Mail.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?
I think it was around £20 per week working at National Westminster Bank.

How do you keep fit?
Four kids, a wife and a dog and walking and swimming.

What’s your most irritating habit?
Interrupting people.

What’s your biggest extravagance?
Clothes, especially ties.

Which historical or fictional character do you most identify with/admire?
Michael Marks – found of Marks and Spencer.

And which four famous people would you most like to dine with?
Chris Evans, Hillary Clinton, Phil Tufnell, George Harrison.

How would you like to be remembered?
As a good husband and dad.

The CV

Born: South Shields,
Age: 54
Married to: Gillian. They have four children.

Education
History and politics degree from Coventry Polytechnic
Management diploma, Newcastle Polytechnic

Work
1978: Graduate trainee, Minories, Newcastle.
1980: Manager, Minories, Datsun dealership, Whitley Bay
1989: Operations director, Minories
1991: Managing director, Appleyard, Oxford
1993: Brand director, Volvo North East
2008: Bought Mill Garages, managing director