Meet the board members
Mary Dhonau ( Chair) has been flooded herself on many occasions and has extensive experience in supporting and advising the victims of flooding during their recovery. She has championed promotion of individual flood protection and resilience and is a passionate advocate of empowering communities to recognise and take responsibility for minimising their collective flood risk.
Mary has represented the ‘voice of the flood victim’ at government level, in the media, and at flood risk management national conferences. She has worked alongside the Environment Agency at many ‘flood surgeries’ and is a respected figure within the flood protection industry. Mary was awarded an OBE in 2009for her services to the environment.
John Alexander has been in the flood protection industry for nearly seven years and in that time has gained a huge insight into this exciting market place. From the early flood scenes he saw in 2007 when sandbags were used extensively it is encouraging to see the radical innovation and change that this SME driven industry sector has achieved.
It now needs the general public, government and property developers to embrace the technologies, abandon the sandbag and plan to protect their own properties with these great solutions.
The FPA is dedicated to improving learning, driving standards upwards and delivering exemplar customer service and John is looking forward to helping shape this through a new and invigorated FPA.
Sue Morgan: is the Business Development Manager at Flood Ark Ltd. Her aim in becoming a director of the Flood Protection Association is to gel all of the members together so we have one voice and one direction. She I have previously been involved with working alongside blue chip companies such as Marks and Spencer and Multi York regarding logistics and customer services and believe that communication is the key to being successful.
She hopes the Flood Protection Association will therefore become a credible trade associations that earns the respect of government and local agencies that deal with the issues surrounding flooding.
Steve Mckeown – Managing Director Whitehouse Construction Services and Director responsible for Safety
Whitehouse Flood Mitigation Role – Head of Service Delivery & Key Client Contact
In a career spanning over twenty five years in civil engineering, flood mitigation and business management, Steve’s wide portfolio of experience embraces the development and continuous improvement of civil engineering contracting entities, with particular expertise in the water sector as Managing Director of Whitehouse.
Steve’s involvement within the Flood Mitigation sector is unparalleled, starting approaching a decade ago in conjunction with Severn Trent Water, he helped to develop and deliver the first Property Level Flood Mitigation Framework in the UK. In the intervening period, Steve has worked closely with other Water Companies in the delivery of Flood Mitigation, including United Utilities, Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water and Thames Water. He has also worked closely with Northumbrian Water; providing effective advice in the setup and management of their Flood Mitigation Pilot scheme and in securing our place on their resulting 5 year PLP Framework.
Currently Steve is engaged through the Whitehouse portfolio in the delivery of several other long term framework arrangements providing Mitigation solutions to individual properties and conurbations in partnerships with clients such as the Environment Agency. Steve is also directly engaged with a number of Local Authorities on a national basis delivering a wide portfolio of EA/DEFRA funded Mitigation schemes.
Steve has had extensive input into the development of our Flood Proof Door systems; a revolutionary concept which has opened up the flood mitigation market by challenging the performance of other products and current Kite mark standard. Flood door products have swiftly become the favoured solution of water companies and government bodies alike due to their ability to provide permanent passive protection which out performs traditional methods; together with universal acceptability by all homeown
Gavin George –Gavin is Director at Aquobex Ltd which offers complete solutions for flood risk with an emphasis on independence, accreditation, guarantees and insurability. Aquobex offers clients insight into the whole-of-the-market for flood products and services through detailed examination of test data and test witnessing.
He has been in the flood protection industry for 10 years with the market leader and delivered the first major contracts for property level protection in the UK. These contracts helped steer the way toward mainstream capital funding becoming available for these forms of protection.
Gavin is very concerned about the effects of man on the environment and is passionate about promoting softer, more natural forms of flood management above traditional approaches of hard engineering. He strongly promotes the usage of property level protection to counter the uncertainty that may come with restoring wetlands, reforestation and land-management changes and sees their use as entirely complementary.
Posts currently held:
Director, Aquobex Ltd
Director, Flood Protection Association (the flood protection trade body)
Expert Panel Member (AIG), to FP7-funded SMARTeST Project (European research project into flood technologies)
Committee Member, Know Your Flood Risk campaign (UK-based flood awareness campaign)
Martin Harris – Director and owner of LightSleeper
Aims and objectives of the Flood Protection Association
The Flood Protection Association (FPA) promotes the advantages of Flood Protection for the benefit of all those affected by flooding and all too frequent blight on people’s lives/businesses.
Being an independant, non commercial, umbrella organisation, Chaired by Mary Dhonau OBE (someone who has experienced the trauma of being flooded and who has no financial interest whatsoever in any one company); we represent the best interests of manufacturers & installers of flood protection equipment together with those of designers, surveyors & various client bodies, tasked with delivery of Flood Protection schemes.
FPA requires its members to adhere to our Code of Practice whilst meeting minimum Contract terms for it’s clients, including a suitable procedure to deal with any complaints or matters arising.
We raise public and client awareness, of the wider solutions available through the use of members’ products and services to minimise the effects of flooding whilst encouraging uniform standards of education and training at all levels across our industry.
FPA obtains maximum publicity for customers, members and other stakeholders, through exhibitions, promotions and appropriate public relations exercises.
We influence legislation, regulations and policies that affect or might affect the technical or commercial interest of customers, the industry in general and our members.
FPA develops and encourages best practice through the promotion of recognised industry standards for manufacture and installation.
We co-ordinate and encourage technical and market research into areas of common interest indentified by members.
FPA works to improve trading conditions and promote business opportunities for members in home and overseas markets.
We provide customers, clients and members with access to technical support on key areas associated with our industry.