Key figure on Teesside business scene awarded MBE in New Year's Honours list

A major figure in the Teesside process industry has been handed an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list.

George Ritchie, 67, from Peterlee, retired as senior vice president for HR at Sembcorp at the end of October after almost 50 years in the process industry, most of it on Teesside.

Mr Ritchie, who was honoured for his services to the process industries and apprenticeships, said: “I am deeply honoured to have received this award. I have had a challenging, varied and wonderful career and worked with some tremendous people.

“I have always believed in the importance of skills development and high quality training in driving businesses and individuals forward and believe the willingness of employers to train and mentor apprentices will be key to the future of the process industries in the years to come.”

Mr Ritchie’s career saw him rise from the bench to the boardroom.

He took a two year technical engineering pre-apprenticeship at Easington Technical College before beginning work at Steetley in County Durham in 1965.

He started as a technical apprentice and carried out a number of engineering roles while taking a degree in Applied Science and Mechanical Engineering at Newcastle University - before he joined ICI in 1978.

Beginning as a construction engineer, before becoming a plant engineer at Billingham, he progressed through a number of engineering roles before overseeing the outsourcing of centralised engineering functions in the early 1990s.

Mr Ritchie was Teesside Services Manager at the time of the massive BASF blaze at Wilton in 1995, working with the police and Cleveland Fire Brigade to ensure the fire - the biggest in peacetime on Teesside - was extinguished safely.

His career took a new turn as energy companies Enron and then Sembcorp took over responsibility for the Wilton International site, effectively ‘retraining’ to take on executive HR responsibilities in both companies.

For the past 15 years he has held many senior local and national positions in the skills, training and apprenticeship arenas and has earned a reputation in both the public and private sectors as a determined and forceful champion of these subjects.

In just over a decade he instigated, shaped and gained financial support for a number of schemes that have led to the creation of almost 1,000 new, high quality apprenticeships on Teesside including those taking the Tees Valley Production Technician (TVPT) apprenticeship.

The Tees Valley Apprenticeship Programme (TVAP) created in 2009, rescued 150 “at risk” apprenticeships following a series of devastating company closures at Wilton and at Corus five years ago.

The scheme was so successful it created a similar number of new apprenticeships and encouraged many local employers to sponsor apprentices, some for the first time.

Mr Ritchie, married with two grown-up children, gained an Outstanding Contribution Award from NEPIC in 2011 and a Special Achievement Award from the Chemical Industries Association in 2012 for TVAP and his contribution to the training and development of young talent.