Houston one day, Rio de Janeiro the next — the managing director of Aberdeen firm Cresent leads a hectic life travelling the world on business.
Jim Land, 51, was getting ready to fly from the US to Brazil when I caught up with him to find out how it was he came to own and head up Cresent, which provides a wide range of consultancy, training, e-learning and multi-media services for the oil and gas industry.
The amiable Geordie’s current occupation is a world away from one of his first jobs, which saw him patrolling a Newcastle park each night in search of litter.
But his north-east of England roots are not forgotten in his globetrotting on behalf of Cresent – Newcastle United’s current battle against relegation from football’s top flight south of the border is being followed closely throughout his travels.
The demands of business this week meant a personal visit to Cresent’s office in Rio, which is also home to Mr Land’s favourite restaurant.
Cresent also does business in the US, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and the Caspian region, which mounts up to a lot of air miles for a man who goes out of his way to avoid planes on his holidays – he much prefers ferries for trips in Europe.
Mr Land grew up in Gosforth, an area of Newcastle renowned for producing two very famous sportsmen in footballer Alan Shearer and athlete Jonathan Edwards. It is also home to nationalised lender Northern Rock, whose credit-crunch problems marked the start of a wave of woes for the UK banking sector.
But it was a life in civil engineering Mr Land was heading for, and all was going well, with industry sponsorship for a college course, until he came off his motorbike and landed up in hospital with a broken leg.
He took a long time to recover from the accident, which scuppered his career plans and left him struggling to find work.
It did not put him off motorbikes, however, and he is now the proud owner of a Harley Davidson.
Newcastle in the late 1970s was a city of declining heavy industries and growing dole queues. A one-time powerhouse of the industrial revolution, it was going through darker days. Even the football club hit hard times, with relegation to the second tier.
Mr Land took a series of jobs, including the litter picking and also at a local bakery, in an effort to scrape a living.
“It was not a good time to be out of work and I would have done absolutely anything to make money,” he said.
A casual conversation in a Newcastle pub, with a man called Billy, led to a life-changing decision to move from one “north-east” to another.
Mr Land said “Billy had always had a lot of money and he told me he worked in the oil industry as a welding inspector.”
This nugget of information was enough to set Mr Land on a new career path.
He quickly signed up for a local college course, which led to him becoming a specialist in non-destructive testing (NDT) — expertise he knew was in demand in the fast-growing North Sea energy industry.
With £100 in savings he jumped into his old Ford Cortina, drove to Aberdeen to arrive on a Friday evening – “because most people quitting their jobs do so on a Friday” – and landed work almost overnight.
“I got three offers and took the one which paid the best,” said Mr Land.
Between 1978 and 1983 he had series of NDT roles in locations around Europe, gaining more experience and qualifications along the way.
By the end of that period, he was a qualified senior pipeline inspector.
He then took a job with McDermott International, working first on the fabrication of large vessels and later on nuclear projects in Germany.
In 1986, he was appointed as senior consultant for a Norwegian firm, Idavoll, carrying out work for clients including Statoil, Kvaerner and Norsk Hydro.
Mr Land moved back to the UK in 1989, establishing a new venture – Red Oak Management Consultants – in Newcastle to provide management consultancy services to companies looking to achieve quality standards in their industry.
The UK Department of Trade and Industry also called on his services as a troubleshooter to recover projects after other consultants had failed to deliver.
During this period, Mr Land developed and delivered specialist training courses for auditors as well as in areas including presentation skills, incident investigation and problem solving.
Red Oak’s 12-strong team carried out projects both nationally and internationally for companies of all sizes, including the likes of Autoglass and British Airways.
It was though management systems auditing and systems integrity work carried out for Aberdeen firm Cresent Engineering that he was brought into contact with Alan Ambler, the north-east company’s founder.
In 1996, Mr Ambler was diagnosed with cancer and given just weeks to live.
“He needed somebody to run the business,” said Mr Land, who struck a deal to buy half of the company.
The original plan was for the rest of the business to be left in trust for Mr Ambler’s children, but Cresent’s founder proved the doctors wrong by making a spectacular recovery and he decided to sell the remainder of the firm to Mr Land.
Mr Land and his wife, Julie, the deputy head teacher at St Margaret’s School for Girls, have since settled at Kingswells. They have two children, Sophie, 18, and Ben, 15.
Cresent has been around for 27 years, but recent events remind its boss of the troubled economy when he took over the business in March 1997.
Back then, the client base was oil and gas companies firmly within a five-mile radius.
With oil prices plummeting to $10 per barrel, Mr Land quickly made a decision to pursue international business during the downturn.
He believes it was the decision to go global during the last recession which has given Cresent its strong position today, with 70% of its business now overseas.
Staff numbers are up to 26, with 23 in Aberdeen and three in Brazil, and the company is seeing strong year-on-year growth.
In January alone, Cresent secured new contracts to the value of £200,000 and created five new positions at the Aberdeen office.
Mr Land said: “We hope to build on the contract wins from the beginning of 2009 and achieve at least £2million worth of new business throughout the year.
“Widening our markets internationally is key to our success and is something I am keen to optimise, having brought Cresent from a local company to an international business since taking on the role of managing director.”
He added: “Our global reach has also been enhanced by the recent appointment of a business development executive in Brazil.
“This is an important market for us. Our focus there is on providing health and safety systems for the growing Brazilian oil and gas industry.
“Cresent has moved very much into a global organisation . . . and adding to this success is the range of innovative products we are creating for the industry.”
The firm has developed a suite of safety products designed with its clients, international and domestic, in mind. The latest of these is Worksafe, launched just last week at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.
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