A NORTH-EAST cricketer who used ideas from the sport he loves for an offshore drilling-industry training guide said yesterday the book was now licensed for use on more than 750 rigs worldwide.
Dave Cormack, a consultant for Aberdeen-based drilling-sector training specialist Auriga Training, launched his Roughneck’s Guide to Drilling Calculations at a conference in Houston earlier this year. He said three international contractors had since included it in their training plans, adding: “We are in discussion with other big names in the drilling industry and hope to be able to announce they have come on board in the near future.”
The guide is a self-study series of four books aimed at preparing candidates for the mathematics they will encounter in their training.
Mr Cormack said maths was the most daunting challenge for most people taking well-control exams.
The keen cricketer – he has formal coaching qualifications through Cricket Scotland and played in the Aberdeenshire Cricket Association grades for “longer than I care to remember” – found the answer in sport.
He said: “In the UK, cricketers are developed using a five-stage model which is aimed at taking them from the school playground to the international arena over a period of 12-plus years.
“The first stage of this is known as fundamentals where the focus is on agility, balance, co-ordination and speed. There were several things about the fundamentals stage that hit home – core skills, small steps, encouragement, participation and mastering something before moving on. That was when the seed of The Roughneck’s Guide to Drilling Calculations was sown.”