Malcolm Staff
Managing Director
Malcolm Staff joined Halifax Fan in 2003, after a successful career at Danfoss drives as their Sales and Marketing Director.
Malcolm has transformed the turnover at Halifax Fan through strong business strategies backed up with continuous investment in people and technology.
As our figure head; Malcolm's role at Halifax Fan is to co-ordinate all our departments and ensure the smooth, efficient running of Halifax Fan UK, China and Thailand.
Dr John Irons
Chief Engineer / Drawing Office Manager
Dr John Irons has joined Halifax after many years with one of the world’s largest fan makers in Scotland.
A chartered engineer who uses customer focus and project management to deliver continuous improvement in a design, development and dispute resolution environments. The main focus has been rotating machinery, their ancillary components and the processes in all sectors - power, industrial, nuclear, marine, water treatment and oil and gas industries.
Dr. Gareth Colley
Chief Engineer Asia
Dr. Colley graduated from the The University of Huddersfield, UK with both a BSc (Hons) and PhD in mechanical engineering.
His research has been focussed on the aerodynamic optimization and condition monitoring of turbo-machinery including high speed compressors, turbines and fans. His work has been published in internationally recognised journals and has been invited to speak at numerous international conferences.
Gareth has been with Halifax Fan for 5 years both in the UK as a lead designer and now in China as Chief Engineer Asia. Based in China Gareth is responsible for design engineering, research and development and after-market service. He is also a leading technical figure in the application of ATEX and IECEX for industrial fans in Asia.
Roland Core
Group Finance Director
Roland Core joined us as Group Finance Director in August 2015. Roland is a Chartered Accountant & has a depth of experience in the manufacturing sector following over 20 years in senior finance roles.
In addition to a strong background in the traditional finance areas, Roland enjoys getting involved with the wider aspects of business at all levels.
Roland is married with two children. Outside Halifax Fan, Roland’s interests include reading, walking & following the fortunes of Bolton Wanderers..
Doug Nelson
Business Development USA
Doug Nelson is a degreed Mechanical Engineer from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
He began his career as a design engineer for an American fan manufacturer and later transitioned into technical sales of industrial fans. His career has spanned over thirty years of success in this field.
Dr Ian Parker
Research & Development / Project Draughtsman
Ian is a very talented engineer who has a passion for science and physics.
Ian joined Halifax fan as a graduate after attaining a B.Eng and a Ph.D from Bradford University. His abilities have made him a core member of our team.
Ian's role at Halifax Fan is a Project Engineer/Draughtsman, he carries out regular audit tests on our fan ranges allowing us to comply with BS848 Part 1, 1980. Another role carried out by Ian is FEA (Finite Element Analysis) on our arduous applications.
Kevin Garbutt
MCIPS & Purchasing Manager
Kevin has been with Halifax Fan for 20 years. He originally started his career here as the general buyer of materials & services.
After a number of years in this role he made the step up to Purchasing manager & then sourcing manger. Both roles required him to develop his skills of managing a procurement team.
In 2016 Kevin was delighted to be invited to take on the challenge of managing manufacturing operations. He has been fulfilling the role of Production Manager since September 2016.
Wayne McKenna
Technical Sales Engineer
Wayne originally started at Halifax Fan as a sheet metal apprentice and after seven years working across all departments; moved into the office, where he later attended Huddersfield University for further education.
Wayne's main role at Halifax Fan is as an experienced engineer in sales both internally and externally. Wayne works on the front end engineering selecting and specifying the fans before preparing the technical tenders.
With over 20 years’ experience at Halifax Fan Wayne also represents his department in both the daily production and NCR meetings, mentors new sales engineers and often produces new programs and reference material for internal and customer use. He is also heavily involved in our online marketing on both our website and social media.
Graeme Mount
Technical Sales Engineer
Graeme Mount is an established engineer at Halifax fan. He originally served his apprenticeship at Hartley and Sugden Boiler Makers as a heavy-gauge fabricator.
Graeme moved to Halifax fan as a skilled engineer where he fabricated our fan cases. He later spent many years in our drawing office as a draughtsman.
Using all his previous fan knowledge Graeme is now one of our dedicated sales team.
Waheed Nadir
Technical Sales Engineer
Waheed recently joined Halifax Fan having spent 7 years working for another fan manufacturer. He is a talented individual currently attending further education at University of Huddersfield, aiming for a First class bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (BEng).
He is a fully qualified Mechanical Engineer and has worked in various different departments/job roles such as Workshop Apprentice, Apprentice Engineer, Contracts Engineer, Project Engineer, Design Engineer and Research & Development Engineer.
Waheed intends to complete his BEng degree with a first class BEng qualification and continue to go for a Masters and PhD in Engineering in the coming years.
Neil Baker
Spares and Repairs and Service Manager
Neil Baker is another Halifax Fan apprenticed-trained engineer, who has also worked in all areas of the company, he is now the longest serving original Halifax Fan apprentice meaning he knows our company better than anyone.
As Chief Inspector, Neil oversaw and inspects all of our products and their components, in all stages of manufacture. He also makes regular trips to our Chinese facility where he consults on quality control and the general manufacturing process. Neil's role is co-coordinating all the spare parts and refurbishment jobs
Andy Welbourne
Quality Control
Andy is one of our longest serving draughtsmen; he is responsible for our company quality control.
Andy oversees all our Q.C. aspects ensuring we maintain our excellent standards keeping us a ISO9001 company
Paul Collins
Logistics and Purchasing
Paul started at Halifax Fan over thirty five years ago as an apprentice sheet metal worker.
He has since worked as a mechanical fitter before moving up to his current role in Logistics and Purchasing and now works with our suppliers, freight forwarders, foremen, inspectors, and customers.
Charles Hong
Shenzhen Sales Manager
Charles Joined Halifax fan as a graduate in 2011, after 5 years working as sales engineer.
Charles was promoted as the Shenzhen sales manager in 2016, he is still young but smart, serious and very organized which make him look and think much maturely than his actual age.
Halifax fan is a global company which has very flat internal culture, our business is growing strongly all around the world, especially in China, we can see Halifax fan will be one of the most powerful strength in the world customized industrial centrifugal fan market in years.
Diane Wang
Shanghai Sales Manager
Diane joined Halifax Fan in 2007. She has seen Halifax Fan in China grow rapidly and has also grown herself whilst working for the company.
For the past five years Diane has been working in the Halifax Fan Shenzhen branch as a sales engineer.
Diane has a strong sales and marketing background, developing new markets and re-organising teams based on growing business demands. 10 years’ experience coupled with effective communication skills enable her to provide customers the utmost professional service.
Our Departments
Drawing Office
Our Drawing office is the central hub of our fan knowledge; our highly skilled draughtsmen design and refine our fans to give the best performance, highest efficiency and longevity. Our drawing office uses the very latest 3D modelling software combined with top of the range Finite Element Analysis programmes. As leaders in fan technology we also utilise many of our own programmes developed by our own expert programmers. Halifax fans draughtsmen have either worked at Halifax fan from being apprentices or come to us from smaller fan companies. Every draughtsman has had a college or university education.
Admin Team
We have a growing admin team that deals with all our communications, computers, servers, and human resources.
Purchasing
Our main buyer is Kevin Garbutt, Kevin is a qualified purchaser.
Documentation
With evermore stringent specifications and the growing need for documentation our drawing office staff are all proficient at producing todays documentation needs
Fan Case Department
Our skilled fan case team is manned by qualified, experienced sheet metal workers. We also have a laser operators.
Impeller Department
Our impeller fabricators are experts in building critical rotating equipment, where only the best will do. Each rotor is handmade and welded by our impellermen
Welders
All our welders are coded for all the common and some exotic engineering steels, they use our TAG, MAG, & MMA machines.
Inlet Cone Department
Our inlet cones are one of the most complicated components we make as each cone is hand formed.
Fitting Department
Our fitting team are all experienced mechanical, fabrication engineers, some of whom also work on site. We also have experienced painters who apply wet, powdercoating, and multl-layer chemical / marine finishes. All our fitting engineers are experienced at performing trim-balancing, mechanical run tests, vibration analysis, laser coupling alignment, diagnostics, refurbishments etc.