Daniel Hawthorn
The TRAC International Group provides first class engineering products and services operating worldwide across key business sectors.
We strive to deliver unrivalled service provision and efficiency through innovation whilst maintaining the highest standards of safety, quality and environmental stewardship.
Our principles to our customers, suppliers and the wider community are to treat them fairly, responsibly and respectfully.
We aim to employ and retain staff of ability and integrity, who are committed to working together and supporting our principles.
taken from www.trac.com
Mentor – Charles Summers
Daniel Hawthorn is the Managing Director of Trac Oil & Gas, part of Trac International until 2009 when the company was split into three subsidiaries. Scottish Enterprise took them on as an account Management Company and made Daniel aware of the Business Mentoring program. Daniel described what he needed from a mentor, and Carolyn Maniukiewicz, Aberdeen Executive of Business Mentoring Scotland succeeded in matching Daniel with Charles Summers – his background was within the oil and gas industry with a global corporation. Since retiring in 2008 he has been involved in strategic planning and internationalisation projects with oil and gas companies and other Scottish based businesses.
For Daniel, apart from the synergy between Scottish Enterprise and Business Mentoring he was appreciative that meeting Charles was very good timing. He was wanting to put together a business plan with a five year strategy. Charles made him step back and decide what he wanted to achieve both from the business and for himself, once this was established Charles showed Daniel a business structure to work with. As they will both agree, Charles does not believe in “spoon feeding” mentees but challenges them robustly in their thinking, making them confront what they are trying to achieve. Daniel also had HR issues that needed to be reconciled before they could move forward with their strategy. Again Charles challenged his thought process before he came to a decision.
Daniel feels that the five year plan that they have in place is a “foundation stone of growth and development for the company”, they reached their year one target and are on target for year two looking at a 20% growth. Additionally they have opened an office in Perth, Australia after Charles had made him question if it was for the right reasons strategically.
Daniel has been impressed by the way Charles has made him “challenge his own ideas and made me set clear objectives. We met every month for 6 months which kept us focussed with a deadline to work towards each month.” Charles has enjoyed using his knowledge and experience to keep in touch with the industry as well as realise that strategic planning skills are transferrable across industry.
