On Friday 19th January, we were fortunate to be joined by the family of Mark O’Brien to present this year’s Mark O’Brien award. In memory of Mark O’Brien and this award is open to any employee of Xtrac who is being sponsored by the company for a bachelor’s degree or higher. Mark O’Brien sadly lost his life to cancer in October 2014. Mark worked at Xtrac as a Business Manager for 3 years and in that time made a significant contribution to the company and became an extremely popular and well-liked member of the commercial team, and around our industry.

The winner of the 2023 Mark O’Brien award is Stephen Gomm. Stephen has been recognised as a very proactive individual and has volunteered to train as a forklift driver, a fire warden and more recently a mental health first aider. He also volunteered to be seconded to a key position supporting the factory management, which enabled an immediate improvement in workflow through the factory.

The runner up of the 2023 Mark O’Brien award is Sam Round. Sam quickly became an integral part of the Gear Technology team during his placement, exceeding expectations early into his role. He impressed the management team with his ability to use engineering fundamentals to progress methods in the team and always displayed an enthusiastic approach in his work.