As the oil and gas industry’s skill shortages continue, many firms are looking to other sectors to plug the gap.
Workers with a background in agriculture, the armed forces and whisky distilling are all being attracted to the energy business.
Aberdeen-based oil and gas service firm EFC Group announced earlier this month it was opening an office in the heart of whisky country.
In addition to the new site at Forres, in Moray, the company – a specialist in instrumentation and control systems – is also mulling a manufacturing plant in the area.
Chief executive Bob Will said EFC, which designs and makes controls, handling, instrumentation and monitoring systems, wanted to recruit 10 people for an office at Forres Enterprise Park.
A manufacturing site in Moray, if it goes ahead, could employ treble that figure.
Mr Will, 56, said: “We have to attract people from other sectors; the biggest issue we have is staff retention.
“Aberdeen is almost like a revolving door, the turnover is so high.
“We are now looking north and south, roughly 75 miles outside Aberdeen. As well as Moray we are looking as far south as Fife.”
He added that several projects were now coming on stream both in the UK and overseas, leading to growth at EFC.
The firm, which employs nearly 100 people, is expected to increase annual turnover to more than £30million by 2016, from about £11.5million in 2011-12.
Mr Will said: “The oil business is as buoyant as I have seen it for many years. If a company is not doing well just now they are in trouble. The price of oil has dropped off a little bit but it is still high enough for projects to get the go-ahead.”
Despite being born and raised in Aberdeen, Mr Will said he was lucky to get a job in the oil and gas industry. After serving an apprenticeship in a paper mill the former Bankhead Academy pupil went to Schlumberger, where he spent 15 years before joining Expro.
While working for both companies he lived and travelled in many parts of the world.
He had one unforgettable flight on September 11, 2001.
With other members of Expro’s management team, he was flying to the US when terrorists hijacked two planes and crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York.
Mr Will’s flight was immediately diverted to Gander in Newfoundland, Canada, and with his fellow passengers he could not leave the plane for 37 hours while travellers on dozens of other planes were processed. He said: “In that situation everybody came together.
“We ended up helping the stewardesses serve the other passengers.”
Mr Will ultimately spent five days sleeping on the floor of a nearby fire station as planes around the world were grounded.
He said: “The people in the area were magnificent though, they really looked after us.
“What the people of Newfoundland did for hundreds of people stuck there unannounced was unbelievable.”
After 10 years at Expro and a spell running his own business, Mr Will joined EFC through a £10million management buy-in in 2009.
His company at the time, Celeris, was ultimately integrated into the group.
Mr Will, who lives at Inverurie with wife Sue said EFC now had the right team and conditions to continue its growth.
The failure of the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, had brought focus to the firm’s work, he added.
He said: “It is fair to say that what happened in the Gulf of Mexico has accelerated the upgrades of old rig systems, and we are a key player in that.
“We also now have fantastic team in place and we are starting to see the results of that.”