Paul Brown is set to follow in his father’s prodigious footsteps to become NFDC President.
On Friday this week – acts of God notwithstanding – industry veteran Paul Brown will become the latest president of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors, thereby realising a lifelong ambition to follow in the prodigious footsteps of his father Claude, a pillar of the Federation’s Golden Age.
Paul Brown’s elevation to the Federation’s top job marks the culmination of a remarkable rise and is an achievement of which he should (and will) be immensely proud, not least because he gets to fulfil the role carried so memorably by his father from 1966 to 1968.
Brown (the younger) was attending NFDC Conventions while he was pretty much in short trousers, his father having taken up the mantle of Convention Chairman when he stepped down as President. And like his father, he has the NFDC in his blood.
I will admit that I am somewhat biased. I have known Paul Brown for the best part of 30 years and consider him a friend. When I temporarily quit journalism and sold my soul to join my former editor in the world of press relations, Paul Brown’s equipment dealership – Bak-Ho Plant – was among our first clients. Brown and I co-authored the original NFDC High Reach Guidance Notes and the original NFDC guidance notes on the Safe Use of Mobile Crushers (he brought the expertise and I brought the grammar and punctuation). When my former business partner – Adrian Barker – died in 2006, Paul Brown was a quiet, respectful and supportive presence at his funeral.
Paul Brown would probably admit that he is not everyone’s cup of tea; his detractors might suggest that he is the Federation equivalent of Marmite. He is a stickler for Federation rules; and he can be awkward and abrasive in equal measure. But even those that find his manner brusque will surely recognise those mannerisms merely as a physical manifestation of his passion.
Say what you like about the NFDC, but over the years it has developed a commendable habit of having the right president at the right time: shouty and divisive presidents to get stuff done; quieter, more considered presidents to heal rifts. Paul Brown unquestionably comes from the shouty and divisive camp and his arrival could not be better timed. In a post-Didcot world, the Federation and the wider industry need a tough and uncompromising NFDC president. Brown fits that bill perfectly.
Of course, there is unlikely to be much shouting this Friday. In fact, when he is finally handed the chains of office once worn by his late father, I would not be in the least surprised if there was a tear in Paul Brown’s eye. Not because it means a likely boost for his company or his ego but because that is what the Federation means to him.
In chief executive Howard Button, the NFDC has a man that lives, breathes and sleeps the Federation. Cut him open, and he almost certainly has the letters N.F.D.C. running through his core like a stick of Blackpool rock.
Paul Brown is cut from that same cloth. He can’t help it. It’s in his genes.
