Leon Dashwood, Global Operations Director with OES Asset Integrity Management is celebrating his 10th year anniversary working for the company on Sunday.

Leon is originally from Great Yarmouth, ironically an Oil and Gas town.

At the tender age of 16 years old, he joined the Royal Marines Commandos where he served for 6 ½ years. The intense training and discipline he experienced in the forces, gave Leon a very good foundation to working within the Oil and Gas Industry with its rigid safety requirements and processes.

He joined OES in 2007 as a Trainee Inspector, carrying out inspection scopes across the globe. Leon soon took to the inspection sector and before long, was leading the jobs and passing on his knowledge to assistants.

He was promoted to Technical Co-ordinator in 2012 and he was then again promoted to Operations Manager, where his role was to run the Middle East and Asia Operations, being heavily involved in the New Build Boom in South Korea for the new generation drill-ships.

In late 2014, Leon was appointed as Regional Managing Director MENA, where for the next 2 years run the full MENA business and in addition in January 2017, Leon was appointed as Global Operations Director.

Leon has had his moments in his early years with OES. Whilst finding himself on the wrong side of Chairman Richard Upshall on more than one occasion, Leon’s personality and tenacious character did get noticed and recognised. This challenging trait is one that has been reflected in other team members, including Joseph King, Global Technical Manager, who celebrated 10 years with OES in 2016.

Richard Upshall, founder and Executive Chairman of OES, said; “Leon epitomises what can be achieved with focus and hard work. I remember him at the beginning of his career with OES, fresh out of the Marines and thinking he was all that… it was fun to accompany him on this journey, and continues to be challenging as Leon evolves further to lead a business like OES.

It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Leon, his loyalty and dedication is reward enough, and to be able to see him flourish, adapt, learn and grow the way he has, especially through such adversity in the industry of late, is tribute to the character he is.”

Congratulations Leon from everyone at OES!