Leiths

Ian Leith took the opportunity at a recent Executive meeting to present Simon Russell with the Institute of Quarrying’s 40 years service medal.

Simon first joined the industry in 1972 as a graduate geologist working for the Amey Group in Oxford. After 5 years with the Group, he moved into the opencast coal industry, initially as a geologist but soon moving on to be the resident mining engineer at a large opencast coal mine in the Midlands. In 1979, he rejoined ARC as a quarry manager in South Wales and then through a series of promotions ended up as the Managing Director of ARC Marine, running a fleet of 11 aggregates dredgers in western Europe.

In 1997, Simon joined the Brett Group in Canterbury as their Group Chief Executive. He first met Ian Leith on a Volvo trip to Las Vegas in about 2003, and when the opportunity arose, Simon was pleased to join Leiths in 2007.

Simon commented “ It has been great working with Ian over the last 6 years, and see the group develop despite very difficult market conditions in the construction materials sector. The future offers some excellent opportunities, particularly with the AWPR and other infrastructure projects in Scotland.”