Top honour for Aisling
Gas apprentice Aisling Megahey has taken her career with Belfast-based HEAT – a subsidiary of green support services sector and FTSE 250 company Eaga - to new heights after becoming the first woman to win the prestigious National Corgi Apprentice of the Year Award.
Aisling, 21, was presented with the award recently at a gala dinner at Coventry City football club.
The Corgi awards recognise excellence and more than 700 representatives from across the UK gas industry were present
Having decided on a career as a gas engineer at 16, Aisling quickly made her mark at HEAT.
By the end of her first year she had been chosen as the face of the national training council for the construction industry (CITB’s) campaign to encourage more women into the industry.
She said: “Working in such a male dominated environment was a bit a daunting at first, but I was determined to succeed and I have received so much help, support and encouragement from everyone at HEAT.
“This is the career I have always wanted, and HEAT has given me the opportunity to learn the skills and gain the professional qualifications to do it. Winning this award is a wonderful bonus, and I hope it will encourage other women.”
By the end of her second year Aisling had achieved NVQ Level 2 in gas and by June 2005 she was awarded HEAT’s Apprentice of the Year Shield for all-round performance.
Her NVQ Level 3 had to be completed by night class, due to shortages in teaching staff, and she was one of only three students out of an original class size of 19 to pass.
John Morgan, HEAT’s Director of Resource and Development, said: “Aisling’s calibre has been outstanding from the start; conscientious, mature and diligent. She is clearly a future star in the gas industry.”
John Clough MBE, Eaga Chief Executive, added: “We are extremely proud of Aisling’s achievement and delighted for everyone at HEAT; this is a success they can all share in. As a former employee-owned organisation, investing in our staff - our Partners as we call them - and helping them fulfil their potential is extremely important us. HEAT’s employee focus typifies this and it is little wonder they were ranked 10th in this year’s Sunday Times Top 100 UK Companies to work for list.”
ends
Notes to Editors
- Eaga plc is the UK’s largest residential energy efficiency provider. The company is a leader in the provision of innovative and sustainable services, products and solutions that address the environmental, social and energy efficiency objectives of Government and the private sector both nationally and internationally.
- Working in partnership with central and local government Eaga is positioned at the heart of policy-making and front-end delivery of social and environmental improvement programmes. Eaga operates across the UK and in the Republic of Ireland, India and Canada employing over 3,500 people.
- Eaga was established in Newcastle in 1990 to lead government funded efforts to improve the living conditions of vulnerable people living in cold, damp and energy inefficient homes across England. Since its inception, Eaga has made a positive difference to over 5 million disadvantaged households across the UK, by installing energy efficiency measures and central heating.
- Eaga holds the contract to deliver the £1.5 billion Warm Front programme in England, the cornerstone of government's target to eliminate fuel poverty by installing energy efficiency measures in vulnerable homes by 2010. Eaga also works with devolved nation governments to deliver similar schemes across the UK.
- As a co-owned business, Eaga is one of only a handful of UK organisations where every employee with over a year’s service is entitled to a share in the success of the business. Eaga’s commitment to co-ownership is an integral part of the values that define the ethos of the business and what it means to be an Eaga employee.
- The Government has set targets for all local authorities to have all social rented homes meeting Decent Homes standards by 2010. This requires homes to be fit for habitation, in a reasonable state of repair, with reasonably modern facilities and services and a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
- Since 2000, Eaga has invested over £3 million in the independent Eaga Partnership Charitable Trust which funds research into solutions to fuel poverty.
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