In the annals of British maritime history, Houlder is one of those famous names. Dating back to 1849, Houlder was quintessentially British and its ships were instantly identifiable by their black funnel with white Maltese cross set on a red background.
Unlike so many “red duster” famous names, Houlder made it into the North Sea oil and gas era with the (just) late John Houlder at the helm.
Indeed he was to steer the group into purpose-built ore carriers, gas carriers and drill ships; also semi-submersibles and diving support vessels.
His most notable achievement was the design and delivery of the sub-sea construction vessel named “Uncle John”, for which he was awarded a Gold Medal by the Institute of Marine Engineers as well as the President’s award of the Society for Underwater Technology, of which he later became president.
The present day Houlder is far removed from those days. It is basically a consultancy with add-ons whose current MD, Rupert Hare, clearly has huge regard for John Houlder and what he achieved.
“When they sold the business in the 1980, John made sure that the technical department that remained had a future and formed Houlder Offshore Engineering,” Hare told Energy.
At that time the consultancy was half-owned by Stena, which Hare said proved to be something of a millstone as Houlder was “almost seen to be in the pocket of Stena Drilling”.
“We later broke free from that and became 100% independent. There were 15 or 16 people in the business in the firm at the time. So, from being a business that had reputedly been one of the largest employers in the North Sea, it had come down to 15 or 16 people holding onto the Houlder name.
“They went into consulting and vessel support, behaving as an outsourced technical department for rig owners. They grew the business because a lot of the Houlder fleet had in any case gone to Stena or Coflexip and this helped us grow our client base.”
In the late 80s, because the firm had experience with diving, it was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence to integrate the dive systems aboard the then new HMS Challenger. Thus began Houlder’s relationship with defence as a further string to its otherwise oil & gas and marine focus.
Hare joined in 1994 in the post Piper Alpha period.
“As a naval architect I was redoing stability analysis on semi-submersibles in line with HSE requirements. However, with our ship-owning background we continued to handle clients with ships, providing support.”
By the late 90s the firm was doing lots of work for Stolt, designing three ships for them having previously played a key role in conversion of the support ship Lochnagar.
“We had a vibrant offshore up here (Aberdeen) at the time; picking up a lot of work.
“But at Christmas 1998 or 99, Stolt pulled the plug on the designwork and we dropped from around 120 people to not very many. Aberdeen was reduced to a skeleton staff. The Stolt pull-back was a horrible experience.
“And that’s one of the challenges of being a small business; you can’t always achieve the continuity of work that you really need.
However, down in London, life picked up again, helped by a huge piece of work on a MOD private finance initiative (PFI) project to build a fleet of roll-on, roll-off support/deployment ships for the navy. And then it all went to ratchet again around 2003-04.
“Almost cruelly in Aberdeen, we were down to two people,” said Hare.
But then Stolt came back on board as a client and Houlder started to pull back its oil and gas business.
Over the period 2004-05 the prior shareholders decided to retire. John Harrison and Linsley Meadows had tried to sell the company a few times but didn’t manage to.
“So we did a buy-out and I was appointed as MD, plus we set up an employee benefit trust to own the company,” said Hare.
Today he believes that Houlder has achieved a measure of stability and he is resolved to keep it that way based on four business streams – defence (currently down), marine (ticking along), oil and gas (80% of the business) and renewables (highly promising including investment in an offshore turbines access system).
That the highly regarded Mike Chew was tempted into Houlder to rebuild Aberdeen has apparently helped enormously as his experience, track record and ‘gravitas’ has helped to compensate for the loss of retirees like Harrison and Meadows.
Turnover in the last financial year was £11million, which is in sharp contrast to 2005 when the firm almost went bust.
Hare: “We’re looking to double the size of our business within the next five years; we might even do it next year. One never quite knows.
“However, it’s got to be sustainable. I don’t like our history of going up and falling back. A sustainable workflow is much preferred.”
That Houlder today with its headcount of around 70 specialists is rather more than simply a consultancy will help achieve sustainability, in his opinion.
“We do like to live by our designs now, and then make and install what we design on vessels. That helps bump up turnover. I’m also convinced this approach adds value to client projects.
“That is definitely where we can build our business and differentiate ourselves from other consultancies. Also, there are a whole load of suppliers and if we can bring those together to produce an outcome aboard a vessel then I think that’s a much better outcome.
“We’re very practically minded.”
Age: 44
Education: university, college, other
University of Exeter and University of Southampton
Main roles in career and dates
I worked as a Naval Architect from 1994 and moved into Business Development in 1999 before becoming Managing Director in 2005
What has been the hardest decision you have made in business?
Few people orientated decisions are easy. We embarked on a specific strategy to grow the business last year and deciding how to best structure our team to implement it was an important one to get right. That said, it was made much easier by our ongoing work to attract and retain good people in the first place.
Who do you admire in business? Or who has inspired you most in your career?
It’s hard not to admire our previous owner John Houlder. He still visited the business until very recently and maintained his passion for business and innovation well into his 90s.
What do you regard as being your greatest success to date?
We have grown our capability and resource despite working in tricky economic times. I am most proud of the fact that Houlder has been positive and kept its ambition.
What do you do to relax?
I spend a lot of time on Devon’s beaches, swimming in the surf.
If you were not in the job you are in, what job would you like?
As an ex rower, can I check if Olympic Champion counts as a job?
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