Fifer wins Openreach's Engineer of the Year award
A Glenrothes engineer who helps keep Fifers connected has been named Openreach’s Engineer of the Year.
Lee Carmichael, who installs full fibre broadband around Fife, won the company’s highest engineering award and the Exceptional Engineer award at a ceremony at BT Tower in London.
The former Auchmuty High School and Pitteuchar West Primary School pupil was described as a ‘superhero of the north’ in his nomination and praised for his repairs, installs, out-of-the-box thinking and support for colleagues.
“It was a bit of a shock when I won,” says Lee. “It’s been getting a lot of attention from my colleagues. They like to wind me up about it – cheering and clapping when I come into work.
“It’s unbelievable and been a bit of a whirlwind. I thought it was amazing that I got to go to London, stay the night, see the BT Tower, and go to the event. I was nominated for Exceptional Engineer and was chuffed when I won that. Then they came to the Engineer of the Year award. They gave an introduction about the winner, talking about this person working in the north – I was quite oblivious.
“Then they said they were sitting in the front row, so I started looking across for the winner. And then they said my name.”
As well as being presented with the award, the 40 year old, who has been with the company for 18 years, was given an Openreach van with special ‘OR23 ENG’ licence plate and £500 reward.
Lee joined the company in 2004 as an apprentice after graduating from Glenrothes College. After two years in that role he was joined his local team, before moving to a senior engineer role.
Lee’s day-to-day work sees him tackling challenges in the network and giving advice and support to colleagues who are facing issues.
He also ‘buddies’ with less experienced engineers, giving them tips and helping them develop, and fine tunes his own skills by working on repairs and installs.
Lee says: “The good thing about this job is that, no matter how long you’ve been in the business, there’s always something new that you find out. I like when there’s a complex job that I’ve started – and maybe I have to get other divisions in Openreach involved if I can’t do it myself – and being able to see the faults cleared. There’s satisfaction to that.”
Lee’s manager Kenneth Laing praised him for his ‘passion and determination’.
“I feel extremely lucky to have someone in my team with such passion and determination to deliver day in day out for our customers. Lee is not only a great support to myself daily but the whole team - he is always on hand to support anyone no matter how big or small the task may be. Seeing Lee working first hand, the only surprise to me is that he has not won this prestigious award before now.”
