Remembering our Chairman, Norman Gough
(1926-2019)
"His passing took place on Saturday 26th October 2019 after a short illness. He continues to be sadly missed"
In partnership with his wife Joan, 1967 witnessed the startup of a wholesale business operating from small rooms, a stone's throw from the BBC studios in Bristol. Little then was known of how it would develop into the multi-million pound operation that it is today.
The 70's saw the first real change early on. Having already established the distribution of 3M adhesives & tapes as well as acting as an agent for Sericol screen inks, a call for help from a key customer for specialised stickers led to the eventual introduction of screen followed by flexo printing technology to produce labels. With the dire need for more space a site was rented in Avon Street near Brunel's Temple Meads which gave some temporary reprieve. However the following year with space again an issue and a fire close by in a flour mill, larger buildings were sought. This culminated in investing in a unit within a small trading complex near the Feeder canal in St. Philips and where we remain to this day.
The rest of the decade saw further growth in being appointed as a premier distributor for Advance Tapes International and also for Marler screen inks which then was owned by 'Doc' Reed, the inventor of 'Letraset'.
The 80's began with Simon Gough (Norman's son) joining the business primarily to introduce a simple computer system into the operation to streamline stock control and inventory. During the next ten years expansion continued at a steady pace resulting in the eventual ownership of the whole of Temple trading estate. FineCal became a leading tape supplier into both the Aerospace and Electronic markets, and was instrumental in setting up the MarketNow organisation, a group of like-minded 3M distributors coming together to determine the best routes to access and offer commodity products to customers throughout the UK.
The 90′s saw further expansions. Customer demands to reduce real costs and supplier numbers led us to enlarge our product portfolio in packaging and other industrial consumables as well as increasing our delivery fleet. In South Wales we opened a dedicated facility in Cardiff - FineCal (Cymru) whilst bringing on board Gibbon inks into our what then was our Marler-FineCal operation leading to eventual links to SunChemical.
Running alongside this meanwhile, pressures continued from customers to rely on good supply chains to satisfy their client demands for full compliancy to various contracts and services. This resulted in our investment in formalising our management systems. Although FineCal had been regularly audited by the MOD, we opted to improve our standing and successfully gained BS5750 - we now have accreditation to ISO9001:2015 quality systems.
The new Millenium commenced with a real boost and the buyout of our a neighbouring 3M distributor - Brissco Equipment. As they had decided to concentrate on their sign + graphic's side, this enabled us to strengthen our position and service the increased customer base with wider product offerings. Eventually, FineCal consolidated its position and recently invested in full acquisition of Preline Ltd with bases in Livingston, Scotland and Wellingborough.
With all these developments, you'd think that Norman and Simon would be busy enough - but not likely! During the 80's, Norman had seized upon an opportunity to set up FineCal Environmental Systems. This venture aligned itself closely with Norman's engineering background combined with the local geology around Bristol – the root cause of furring in domestic equipment due to the existence of 'limescale'.
The story goes: unable to find someone locally with skills in softener equipment as his own softening appliance had developed a problem, Norman contacted Culligan, the manufacturer of hard water converters to help. Well they soon recognised Norman’s technical ability and in conjunction with their own engineer, trained him up as they themselves were short of people. Thus FineCal became the Culligan dealer for the South-West installing softener equipment for both domestic and commercial markets, carrying out maintenance and the supplying salt. Nowadays all the work is undertaken by Simon in assisting customers with his experience in the art of water softener installation and servicing.
And so to the future,
Simon Gough remains at the helm as Director of the renamed FineCal Group Ltd. He is supported with a strong Management team of Nick Searle, Sales & Marketing; Simon Thomas, Group Buyer & Quality; Tony Eagle, Group IMS; Pat Dally, Aerospace Manager with her team of Katie Smith & Phil Watkins; Penny Coleman in Sales as team leader; and Kate West, Label Production Manager. A recent upgrade of our IT systems and full testing has led to the gaining of Cyber Essentials Plus approval. Meanwhile we are very pleased after such hard work amongst the team, we achieved AS9120-B / EN9120 (Aerospace accreditation for stockists) in March 2020. So alongside our ISO9001:2015 and whatever your view, there's no doubt that FineCal has come a long way from humble beginnings in Clifton to the business as it is today. We're sure Norman would have remained to be very proud.
* oh and in case you’re still wondering what does FineCal actually means, it's simple; the ‘Cal’ is an Americanism for self-adhesive and ‘Fine’ ... well there’s really no need to explain this, is there?…
(Tony Eagle - IMS Group Manager - January 2021)