As a young man sat nervously in the reception of the British Welding Research Association on 2 October 1961, no one could have foreseen that this fledgling engineer was embarking upon a career of extraordinary distinction.
The 22 year old scientific officer, wearing the staff badge of Mr A B M Braithwaite, had come straight from the University of Cambridge with an engineering degree, preceded by a year as a welder. His employment application alsomentioned playing in the University traditional jazz band, an interest in steam engines and a place in the Cambridge Olympic gymnastics team.
Today as TWI's chief executive Bevan Braithwaite OBE, MA, FREng, FWeldI, prepares for retirement, the penchant for jazz flourishes, the gymnastics are less evident.
In this farewell message to Industrial Members Bevan recalls the early days...
"It is almost exactly 40 years since I wrote my first article for the Bulletin. I remember it clearly; it was called 'Facts of Fatigue' and was my attempt to popularise our knowledge.
When I joined the organisation I was struck by how incredibly clever most of my colleagues were but I was less impressed with the organisation's ability to communicate its knowledge in simple terms to our Members. Facts of Fatiguewas the start of a number of articles which I had proof read by the chap that helped me in the garden at home. My view being that technology in its simple form should be understandable by the man in the street.
Forty-three years later, as I retire from the organisation, I consider myself extremely fortunate to have enjoyed going to work, having the privilege of working alongside exciting (and occasionally eccentric) people and beinginvolved in the sometimes amazing situations conjured up by our Members.
TWI, which grew from an amalgamation of a research association with a professional engineering institution in 1968, is very fortunate to have at its heart a technology that is everlasting. Joining materials successfully will alwaysbe a challenge. The pioneering work on lasers in the late 1950s pointed the way towards a broader base than arc welding, and I think we formally recognised that we were joining, not just welding, by the mid '70s.
Our contribution to our Members has been, I think, in two distinct areas. The first is to introduce them to different ways in which joints can be made, which in turn free up design options and lead to product innovation.
The second has been to work with Members to determine the reasons that things have gone wrong, and propose solutions. This latter activity has always been the more dramatic, as failures and problems come in all shapes and sizes,many of them expensive in terms of money, loss of life or misery.
I remember an occasion early in my career as a fatigue specialist when I broke the news to the Managing Director of a large company that his particular product would produce fatigue cracks quite quickly and that, unusually, thesituation was irrecoverable. He buried his head in his hands and I think shed a tear because he realised that it probably spelt the end of the company.
Three years later they were not in business. It brought home to me the enormity of the respons-ibility that TWI staff bear in helping people get things right either in design, material selection or choice of joining process. Todayit goes even further as everyone is challenged by concepts of whole life costs, environmental impact, and disposal and decommissioning.
Today TWI has over 2000 Industrial Members in over 60 countries and is truly a global organisation. We are all very proud of the fact that over 10000 people visit us each year for technical advice, quite apart from the tens of thousands ofqueries and millions of hits on the JoinIT website.
I have always been encouraged by the number of visitors that go out of their way to comment on how well they have been received and how useful their visits have been. For me these interactions are at the heart of the businessbecause people talking to people will always be the most effective means of communication.
To you, the Industrial Membership of TWI, I pass the helm into the very capable hands of Dr Bob John, TWI's Director of Business Development since 1990, and wish you and your businesses good fortune and prosperity in thefuture."
