All Staff at Derwent Training Association would like to welcome Danny MacFarlane and Dr Andrew Suggett who have both been appointed onto our Board of Directors. 

Danny MacFarlane                                                                                                                                                                                            Danny is currently an Engineer with over 20 years' experience in the plastics injection moulding industry. He is currently Operations Director at Ellis Patents, an SME based in Rillington with 60 employees and a turnover of £7 million. Danny has worked for Ellis for 14 years, initially as a Technical Manager, before moving into operations. Danny was previously employed by McKechnie Plastic Components (now Rosti Automotive) at Stamford Bridge as Quality/Environmental Manager dealing with customers including Dyson, Guinness, Black and Decker, Hewlett-Packard and Jaguar Landrover. 

DTA will be supporting International Women in Engineering Day which takes place annually on 23rd June. The day focuses attention on the amazing careers in engineering and technical roles for girls, and allows the celebration of the outstanding achievements of women engineers. 

The Women in Engineering Society (WES) is a charity which started in 1919 at the end of the First World War when the women who had worked in technical jobs during the war wanted to continue with this work. A change of law to ensure that the country reverted to a pre-war setting when the War finished ment that the women were unable to continue in their (engineering) jobs, and were unwanted in the technical professons.

Nine apprentices from DTA narrowly missed out on being named Apprentice Team of the Year at the National Finals of the Brathay Apprentice Challenge. We are proud that the team placed fifth out of eight teams in the Finals. 

The Finals follow a testing five-month Challenge, the team from DTA were competing against seven of the country's leading apprentice employers and training providers.