Meet Bill the GOB President

Meet Bill Bowman PGB the current President of the Guild of Bricklayers.

Here is Bill's journey in an amazing industry and how he started off being a bricklayer and now the current President of the Guild.
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At the age of 15 I attended the local construction college one day a week to do a pre-apprentice course that included Carpentry, Plumbing and Bricklaying. After leaving school I was offered an apprenticeship in bricklaying with a Midlands based civil engineering company. After completing my apprenticeship, I became self- employed working on several projects including housing, extensions, and commercial buildings in the area. I then decided to leave the construction industry and signed up for three years in the Royal Navy as most of my family before me had done.
After leaving the service I went back construction and got a job working for the local authority in Birmingham on housing repairs and maintenance, where I served for 26 years, and made many friends. When the local authority ceased its construction activities, I decided look at opportunities in teaching and applied to my local college for a teaching qualification, and at the time the college were looking for part-time staff in construction, and was I taken on and worked as a lecturer until 2000 when I moved to assessing NVQs for eighteen years.
At the age of 60 I went back on the tools where I am now a self-employed bricklayer again, so your never to old. On reflection of my career, I have met some amazing people and made lots of friend and colleagues and have enjoyed every minute of it and I would like to thank all the people within the Guild of Bricklayers for their help and support and to my wife Waveney.