The People Behind The Energy - Learning the Business

Cora: Finding Her Place in the System

“It’s one thing on a page,” Cora says. “But it’s not exactly that out in the field.”

When she joined Calor’s graduate programme in 2022 after studying Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, she thought she understood process – controlled systems, defined outcomes. “I love knowing how something’s created from start to finish.”

At Calor, the systems turned out to be far more human.

Today, as Customer Tank Optimisation Lead, Cora works across the operational side of the business, overseeing processes connected to more than 30,000 tank assets across Ireland. “The biggest thing I’ve learned is how one small change can affect so many other departments,” she says. “Everybody relies on each other more than you realise.”

Her first years were spent in customer engineering, supporting the maintenance and operation of customer sites across the country, “seeing the big picture of everything in the field.” It was a complex system with so much invisible coordination behind it. “It really opened your eyes to how much goes on.”

She found herself homing in on the small inefficiencies that quietly create opportunities for big improvements.

“We always aim to be smarter in how we work,” she says. One project focused on improving our success rate for scheduled tank installations. Teams across sales, operations and installation partners SGI were communicating constantly by email but had rarely sat down together to map the process from beginning to end. “We don’t have time for that sort of waste. We brought everybody into a room together,” she says. Failed installations dropped from 23% to 5%.

Cora speaks warmly about the operational teams who have spent decades in the field. “We’d be very black and white in the office,” she says. “But the lads in the field bring the grey into it.”

Cora sees engineering as a way of understanding systems - how people, processes and decisions interact. That perspective also shapes the way she talks about sustainability. Her postgraduate thesis focused on Net Zero Engineering. Her conclusion: there will never be a single answer. “Ireland is so rural,” she says. “Remote solutions are still going to have to be there.” The longer she has worked in the industry, the more she believes businesses like Calor will continue adapting alongside those realities. “They’re building for the future.”

She talks about technical supervisors who can solve problems instinctively because they have seen versions of them hundreds of times before. Managers who worked through every layer of the business. She sees value in bringing different kinds of experience together. Calor’s graduate programme has expanded since she joined, bringing younger engineers through different operational teams across the organisation.

“Their brains are amazing,” she says, laughing. “AI, ChatGPT, different ways of working. You can get very stuck in the way you’re doing things,” she says. “Sometimes you need somebody to look at it with fresh eyes.”

Dave: The Route That Became Home

Dave's father delivered cylinders before him. Dave remembers helping out on the truck as a teenager.

Thirty years later, he's still on the road for Calor.

These days, his route looks different. He delivers to commercial customers across the country, often visiting the same sites week after week. Before that, he spent a decade covering the Cavan area, getting to know the roads and the rhythms of the place so well that he eventually bought a holiday home there.

Today, he keeps his classic car collection there too. "I love driving," he says. "Always since I was very young. The freedom."

That word comes up more than once. The freedom of being on the road. The freedom of working outdoors rather than sitting behind a desk. The freedom of no two days looking the same. "When I'm doing a course and sitting in a room all day, the day is really long," he laughs.

Over the years, the technology has changed. Sat navs have replaced maps. Most of the fleet now runs on HVO, not diesel.

But for Dave, the biggest part of the job has remained remarkably consistent.

The people.

For much of his career, he delivered to homes and farms across rural Ireland, often becoming one of the few regular visitors customers would see during the week. "The drivers who have a love for it are better at doing it than the people who just see it as a job," he says.

He got to know people, hear their stories. And over time, they got to know him too. "The next time they’d see you, they'd ask how your holiday was."

Over time, familiarity became trust. "There'd be a key left out for you under a stone," he says. The arrangement was understood. The driver knew where the tank was. The customer knew the driver would look after the place.

Before sat navs, Calor drivers learned their areas road by road. The local knowledge accumulated over years. So did the relationships. Dave mentions drivers he knows who were thirty years on the same route. Customers would never dream of changing supplier while they were still around.  

Dave still spends time on the roads in Cavan, but now more as a local than a driver. He’ll often see a familiar face from his route in a shop or restaurant there. What began as a delivery route became something closer to a second home.

Perry: Shaping the Operation That Shaped Him

When Perry started at Calor in 2000, he was 19 years old, looking for a job and trying to find his footing after a brief spell in the building trade. A position came up as a filling plant operative in Calor's cylinder operation in Belfast.

Twenty-six years later, he is Head of Cylinder Operations for Ireland, overseeing some of the biggest projects in the history of the operation where he started. “I think this is my seventh promotion now over the 26 years, so fairly good progress,” he laughs. “It's been a long road, but supervisors and managers saw something and gave me opportunities along the way.”

Perry sits on Calor's extended leadership team, working with senior leaders across the business and helping shape the future of the cylinder operation.

"There is a piece of each of my managers in the way I manage. I've tried to pull the goodness that I've seen from previous managers and always learn from it."

As his responsibilities grew, so did the challenges. Sometimes he found himself managing people who once managed him. And there’s still the imposter syndrome, "The higher you go, that takes a bit of time to go away. But it gives the guys confidence, when I'm trying to push changes through, they know I've been there, done that. It helps with managing that change.”

For much of his early career, Perry's world was defined by the operation immediately around him. "My world was inside the plant." Over time, that perspective expanded. He witnessed huge changes across the business, from shifting market conditions and sustainability pressures to the way people work together across the organisation.

"Back in the day, your place of work, that was your home," he says. "It was very rare you got to engage with people from other facilities." Today, he sees a more connected business, where ideas and improvements are shared more openly. “It’s not locations looking after themselves anymore," he says. "It's about what's the right thing to do and translating that across the wider business."

For Perry, that openness is a vital part of the work, as is creating opportunities for others. "If you've a desire to improve, don't wait on the openings," he tells younger employees now. It’s advice that reflects his own career, and while he describes himself as fortunate, he also acknowledges a competitive streak, "I don't settle," he says. "I want a wee bit more."

That drive is now focused on something very different from the ambitions of the 19-year-old who first walked into the cylinder plant. Today, Perry is overseeing the possible development of a new cylinder requalification facility and the upgrade of another key operation. Together, the projects will help shape & futureproof Calor's cylinder business for decades to come.

"Now I'm literally responsible for shaping the future of those two areas that I started in. This makes me very proud and excited for the challenge”.

"The pressure's on!"