Systems and network engineer Simon J Houston is the seventeenth employee at Springfield to reach the 25-year milestone.
Mr Houston joined the company in 1997 as a trainee through a City & Guilds work placement scheme. He spent four days a week at Springfield and one day at college, eventually leading to a certified qualification. His initial job role at Springfield was a ‘digital archiver’ – meaning he would store completed job folders to CD-ROM for reprographic customers.
Mr Houston said, ‘At the time, this seemed like a very hi-tech process, and I distinctively remember the Kodak CD writer was about the size of a modern-day desktop PC. Pretty much coming straight out of school, a big draw for me was the relaxed social and grown-up workplace atmosphere at Springfield. I particularly enjoyed my first works Christmas do at the Kingston Arms.’
Some months into his time as a trainee, Mr Houston was allowed to work in the systems department alongside the manager. He was trained in setting up and troubleshooting the Apple Mac computers used by the reprographics operators.
Moving into the late 90’s and early 2000’s, the new print department was established in what is now the main building of Springfield. The business moved 100 yards down the road to the old Printworks site where Mr Houston and his colleagues were instrumental in getting the server infrastructure set up ready for the office staff starting Monday morning.
Mr Houston added, ‘I think this was one of my most memorable times working at Springfield due to the team I worked with and the expansion.’
He took the opportunity to learn how to operate a new HP Indigo 6800 press and travelled to the HP training facility near Barclona. Mr Houston stayed within the print department for some months operating the Indigo presses and testing it as one of the first presses to be installed in line with an ABG finishing unit.
