Dr Stan Higgins, Chief Executive and Director, NEPIC

Jun 28 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

Dr Stan Higgins has become the voice of the chemical industry in the North East. The chief executive of industry body Nepic tells Peter McCusker of his rise to the top.

AS A student at York University, a young Stan Higgins notched up 40 goals in one season as centre forward for the university team - including six hat-tricks.

His mother’s cousin Charlie Woods, a former professional footballer and close friend of the late Sir Bobby Robson, came to watch him during this purple patch, but put a swift end to the youngster’s footballing dreams.

Higgins, 57, recounts: “He said I should stick in at school, which was probably good advice.”

He had left school in Whitehaven at the age of 16 with six O Levels and secured a job at Windscale nuclear power station as a laboratory assistant.

He recalls how he was very happy with his life at the time, but how a chance conversation at work led to a change in direction.

“Things were going well – I had a Lambretta, a steady girlfriend and I was able to watch the Workington Reds (Workington Town football club) every weekend.

“I was in the lab testing some urine when one of the graduates said to me ‘Are you going to do this for the rest of your life?’ ”

That set young Higgins thinking and he took up the opportunity that was then being offered by his employers, British Nuclear Fuel, to undertake further study.

“I was waiting in the queues for the night classes and there were two queues, one for biology and one for chemistry.

“Everyone was in the biology queue and there was no one in the chemistry queue so I plumped for that one.”

It was a good decision by Higgins and he excelled, landing the prestigious title of the best under-21 employee, which saw him win a scholarship to York University. He got a 2:1 in chemistry, economics and technology and stayed on to complete a PhD in two years.

His first job on leaving university in 1979 was with Reckitt & Coleman as a chemist, where he excelled in organic chemistry, but his ambitions lay elsewhere.

“I was doing well in the organic chemistry field but I really wanted to be a plant manager and started looking for a plant manager’s job,” he says.

These ambitions were fulfilled when he joined GlaxoSmithKline in Lancashire as an assistant production manager.

He later joined Akzo in 1985, where he experienced the sharp end of management, seeing through a rationalisation process which saw a number of plants closed and the 400-strong staff roster reduced to 100.

His first managing director post was at independently-owned business PEBOC in North Wales.

He recalls: “I worked with some brilliant chemists during that time and that is when I knew my skills lay on the operational side of the business.

“I feel as though I helped change the culture of PEBOC with the experience I had gained in my previous jobs.

“It was a small operation and I was able to apply the management and organisational skills and techniques I had learnt and developed in my previous jobs.

“We were able to grow it from a £5m business to a £25m a year one.

“We also won two Queen’s Awards for Industry.”

When this company was sold to multinational Eastman, Higgins helped with the integration and then moved to the United States as technical director with responsibility for five of Eastman’s plants across the globe.

Higgins says he enjoyed his time in the US, although he found living in the States more of challenge than the working aspects.

Both Higgins and his wife Catherine, to whom he has been married for 37 years, found the experience of living in small town America in Kingsport, Tennessee, to be a little too slow. This quickly led to a return to the UK after just one year, where he landed his first job in the North East with Laporte at its Fine Organics division, which is based at Seal Sands, Billingham.

He was appointed divisional director with responsibility for the manufacturing and operation at seven global manufacturing facilities and five research facilities.

The post saw him responsible for worldwide research and development and technical development.

In 2001, Laporte sold the business to Degussa and, in 2003, after spending a year with James Robinson in Huddersfield, Higgins was headhunted for his current job as chief executive and director of the North East Processing Industry Cluster (NEPIC).

NEPIC was the brainchild of Newcastle entrepreneur Ian Shott and Bob Coxon, former chief executive of Teesside company Synetix, and advisor to global private equity giant the Carlyle Group.

Higgins recalls: “They wanted to give a higher profile to the processing industry in the North East and basically asked One North East for more support for the sector.”

The process industry is the powerhouse sector of the region, directly employing 34,000 people in 500 pharmaceutical, biotechnology, speciality, petrochemical and chemical companies.

NEPIC members generate in excess of £10bn of annual sales and account for 30% of the region’s industrial base.

While generally perceived as a Teesside-based sector, Higgins is always quick to point out that its tentacles are spread right across the region, from Alnwick over to Carlisle and into North Yorkshire.

He bought into the concept almost immediately after being approached.

“I think that, at the time, the region as a whole and the regional development agency One North East did not fully appreciate the scale and impact of the region’s process industries.

“They commissioned a report into the sector and this confirmed what people were telling them. The next step was to try and create a body which could create a voice for the industry.”