Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Kirsten! She works for a company called PD Ports and has a very important job as the Head of Communications.

Here is what she does and why she thinks it is the best job in the business:

• Every day is different: Kirsten says that “no two days are ever the same”. One minute she might be planning something, and the next minute everything changes!

• She keeps people safe: If there is an accident at the docks, she works with the police and emergency services to make sure everyone gets the right information.

• She talks to lots of people: Her job is to share good news about her company with workers, customers, and even important people in the government. She also writes stories for the news and speaks in interviews.

To do a job like this, Kirsten says you need some special skills:

• English is very important: You need to be able to write well to help people make decisions.

• Being a good listener: You have to listen carefully and be able to connect with people.

• Planning: You need to be organised and able to work quickly when there is a deadline.

Kirsten went to college to do her A-levels and then went to university to learn about marketing. She has worked at PD Ports for 18 years and loves it because she learns new skills every single day.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Hayley, who has a very important job as a procurement officer. You can think of her as a professional shopper for a big company!

Her job is to buy goods and services that her company needs. To do this, she has to be very good at communicating (talking to people) and negotiating (making deals on prices).

Hayley loves her job because every day is different. Here are some of the things she does:

• Office Work: Sometimes she sits at a desk writing up important shopping documents and checking them.

• Meeting People: She meets with the people she works with to find out exactly what they need her to buy.

• Visiting Sellers: She often leaves the office to visit the people who sell the items (suppliers) and looks around their factories or sites.

She buys all sorts of different things! One day she might be buying stationery (like pens and paper) or cleaning supplies, and the next day she could be buying a massive machine called a reach stacker.

When Hayley left school, she originally trained in finance (working with money and numbers). However, she swapped to this job because she found it more interesting to meet lots of new people and do different tasks every day.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Patti works at a place called PD Ports (Teesport). Her job title is “Key Account and Rail Development Manager”. That sounds like a big title, but it mostly means she looks after customers and helps move goods around on trains.

What does she do all day? Patti says that every day is different. Her job involves lots of talking and planning:

• She finds business: Patti finds new things (goods) to put onto trains to move them from the port to other places.

• She helps customers: She looks after the people who use the port to make sure they are happy.

• She travels: Sometimes she visits her customers here in the UK, but sometimes she gets to go abroad to different countries!

• She works with a team: She talks to the “operations” team (the people who actually load the trains) and the “legal” team (the people who write the contracts).

What skills do you need? To do a job like Patti’s, she says you need two main skills:

• Organisational skills: This means being able to pull everything together so you can do exactly what the customer wants.

• Communication skills: This means being good at talking and listening to people, which Patti says is “vital” (very important).

After Patti finished school and college, she went to university to study business management because she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to do yet.

She started working at PD Ports as an administrator (an office helper). She has worked there for 18 years now and has “worked her way up the ladder” to become a manager. This means she started with a simpler job, learned a lot, and got promoted to bigger jobs over time.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Chloe! She has a very important job called an Operation Superintendent.

Here is what she does every day:

• She works with big ships: Chloe manages the work of loading and unloading cargo ships.

• She walks a lot: Chloe is always moving- she goes on the ship, off the ship, and in and out of sheds. In a single day, she might walk as many as 30,000 steps!

• She keeps people safe: Her main job is organizing the team to make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to do in the safest way possible.

Chloe didn’t always plan to work at a port. When she was younger, she went to university to study journalism (writing news), and then she worked in IT with computers. She wanted a new challenge, so she applied for a job at PD Ports. The company even helped her go back to university to get a degree in business management.

Chloe loves her job because “no two days are the same”. She also likes that there are lots of opportunities to grow and do new things in the future.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Mick. He has a very important job as the Group Security Manager for a company called PD Ports.

Here is what he does all day:

• He keeps places safe: Mick is in charge of keeping 12 different sites across the country safe and secure. He checks on big fences, security cameras (called CCTV), and special electronic gates that let people in and out.

• He travels a lot: Mick travels up and down the country to visit the security guards and check that all the buildings are safe. He also has to look after the money the company spends on security.

• He used to be in the RAF and the Police: When Mick left school, he joined the Royal Air Force for 15 years and travelled the world. After that, he worked as a police officer at the harbour in Teesport before becoming the security boss.

• He loves people: Mick says the best part of his job is working with his team. He likes visiting the different sites and talking to the staff to find out what help they need.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Wendy. She has a very cool and important job as an Assistant Harbour Master.

Here is what she does and how she got there:

Wendy’s main job is to watch ships coming in and out of the river to make sure they are safe. She sits at a desk with lots of screens so she can keep a close eye on what the ships are doing. She also has to check the weather and the tides (how high the water is) to ensure conditions are right for the boats.

She is on the phone a lot! She talks to the people driving the ships, as well as pilots, tug boats, and linesmen. She asks them where they are going to make sure everyone stays safe.

What skills do you need?

• Quick Thinking: You have to be able to make decisions fast.

• Stay Calm: Even when things are busy, you must stay relaxed.

• Be Alert: You need to spot if something is going wrong and notice changes immediately.

When Wendy was younger, she joined the Sea Cadets and realised she really liked learning about ships. She did an apprenticeship with the Merchant Navy and spent 13 years working at sea. During that time, she travelled around the world on cruise ships, container ships, and tankers.

Wendy says the best part of her job is that no day is ever the same and she enjoys solving problems and helping people.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Caroline! She has a very important job at a company called PD Ports where she works as the Group Insurance Manager.

Here is what she does:

• She keeps things safe: Caroline’s main job is to make sure everything at the port is properly insured. This includes the people, buildings, machinery, vehicles, and even the ships.

• Every day is different: Caroline says that no two days are ever the same. One morning she might have to help after a car accident, and another time she might help engineers who have a problem. She works with everyone in the company.

• She is a detective: Two very important skills for her job are communication (talking to people) and investigation (finding out what happened).

• She isn’t stuck in a chair: Caroline loves her job because she gets to deal with lots of people and she isn’t stuck sitting behind a desk all day.

When Caroline left school, she went to college for a year to start her A levels. However, she decided she really wanted to go out and work. She started by insuring houses and cars, then moved on to helping businesses, and finally ended up looking after ships and transport at PD Ports.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Aadil, who has a very important job as a terminal controller at a ferry terminal. You can think of him like a traffic controller, but for giant ships and cargo!

Here is what Aadil does at work:

• He is a planner: Aadil plans how to move ships and organises how to get all the heavy cargo off the boats.

• He uses radios: Most of the time, he is upstairs in an office answering the radio and talking to the workers outside in the yard to tell them where to go.

• He checks the equipment: About 45 minutes a day, he goes outside to check on the rolling stock, which are things like ship trailers that carry goods.

After Aadil finished school and college, he almost joined the army. However, he really likes boxing, and his boxing team actually helped him find this job at the port. He has been working there for over 10 years now.

Aadil enjoys his job because he gets to work with different people and try different tasks, so he never gets bored doing the same thing over and over again. He says learning new things keeps his mind fresh and gives him a “buzz” of excitement.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Mike! He is the Operations Manager at PD Ports, a very busy place where huge ships come and go.

Here is what Mike does and why his job is important:

• Moving Giant Boxes: Mike helps look after containers. These are giant metal boxes that travel on ships from faraway places like China to the UK, or on big road trailers from Europe. His team unloads these boxes from the ships and loads new ones back on.

• A Busy Morning: Mike gets to work around 8:00 am. At 9:30 am, he has a big meeting to check on the previous day. He asks three main questions:

    ◦ Did the ships sail on time?

    ◦ Did the trucks get moving quickly?

    ◦ Is everybody safe? (Mike says checking for accidents is the most important part of his morning).

Even though the port has huge land and expensive cranes, Mike says the machinery isn’t the most important part- the people are. He leads a team of about 360 people. Because of this, he says “people skills” (being good at talking and working with others) are the skills he relies on the most.

Mike didn’t plan to become a port manager when he was at school. A friend told him about a job opening, and he found out he loved it because it is fast-paced and exciting. He started leading small teams and worked his way up to be the manager.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Jenny has a very important job called a Resilience Coordinator. Think of her as someone whose job is to keep the business safe and strong, no matter what happens.

Jenny spends her time looking for things that might go wrong at work, which are called risks. Once she spots a risk, she comes up with a plan to stop it from happening or to make sure it doesn’t cause too much trouble if it does happen.

Jenny’s job is very exciting because she isn’t always sitting at a desk.

• Sometimes, she is in the office for a few weeks writing plans and thinking about risks.

• Other times, she travels to different places like Felixstowe, the Isle of Wight, or the port to teach people and learn about what is going on.

How did she get this job? When Jenny was younger, she went to college to study Business. After that, she went to Coventry University to study something called Disaster Management and Emergency Planning.

At first, she wanted to be a police officer! However, while she was studying, she realised she really liked making plans and looking at risks instead. After working in insurance for a little bit, she found this job back home at a great company.

Jenny’s favourite thing about her job is talking to lots of different people. She says everyone is very lovely and patient when they explain their complicated jobs to her. She loves that her work is different every day.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Mick, who has a very important job as the Chief Officer for the Harbour Police at PD Ports. You can think of him as the boss of the police team that looks after the port!

Here is what Mick and his team do to keep things running smoothly:

• The Boss’s Job: Mick spends a lot of time planning and going to meetings. His main job is to make sure his team of police officers are in the right place at the right time to help the staff and visitors at the port.

• Action at the Port: If you followed Mick’s police officers around, you would see them doing some very cool things! They go out on patrols, which means looking around to stop crimes and keep people safe. They even board ships to check that everyone is following the rules and fly drones to see things from the sky.

Mick left school when he was 16 years old. Before he came to the port, he had a lot of experience helping people follow the law:

• He joined the Army and was in the Military Police for 5 years.

• He was a police officer with Cleveland Police for 27 years.

• He has been in his current job at the port for over two and a half years.

Mick really enjoys his job because every day is different. The most important thing to him and his company is safety- they work very hard to make sure the port is a safe place for everyone to work and visit.