We’re very pleased to have appointed Roy Fugler as our new Senior Trainer. Roy shares our vision and brings a great deal of experience to the role.

Roy’s background

Roy began his career in gas as an apprentice and worked for British Gas for many years up until the late nineties, when he set up on his own for a while. He joined Potterton (now Baxi), in 1999 as a Senior Engineer for six years, before he moved into training.

Roy was a Training Officer for Baxi from 2005 until August last year, when he was made redundant in Baxi’s major restructuring programme.

Time to think

This gave Roy the opportunity for a career break and a chance to think about what he really wanted to do next. His daughter got married and he busied himself with house renovations, but by the end of the year, he realised he was missing the social interaction he had in his previous role:

“I really enjoy training people, nurturing them, to be the very best they can”

A shared vision

Roy fired up his laptop last December and found the vacancy at Viva Training.

He recognised Viva’s company name as he followed Allen Hart’s YouTube Channel and had seen some of the video collaborations Allen had filmed with Richard Firth, Viva’s founder, at the training centre in Halifax.

Together, Allen and Richard had produced a series of short films to help engineers in their training and now have a huge following.

Roy knew Allen Hart as he’d trained him in the past, so he picked up the phone to find out what he thought about it all. Allen gave Viva Training a big thumbs-up and shortly afterwards an interview was arranged:

“I was booked to see Richard at two, for an interview – we finished talking at 7pm and I was buzzing! We really hit it off and spent hours talking about what we could do together. We share the same vision for training, the desire to go beyond the basics, to support learners throughout their careers with further training in breakdowns and fault-finding etc. It was really exciting!”

Now Roy’s on board, Richard’s pleased to have found someone to share his vision and help bring his plans alive:

“Roy has loads to offer. He’s a really experienced trainer and he really cares about the trainees. The appointment of Roy as Senior Trainer is going to help me move forward with future plans at Viva – watch this space!”