Our Experts
CRA’s success is based on encouraging our staff to fully develop their knowledge and skills, and to apply them as part of carefully selected client-focused project teams.
CRA Europe’s staff are experts in their own fields, specialising in a broad range of environmental and health & safety disciplines. For details of individual capabilities, please see below the personal profiles of key staff.
In addition to our own staff, CRA Europe is able to call on the technical skills of over 3,000 staff in the CRA Family of Companies to provide a formidable breadth of expertise. We also work with partner organisations in the UK and around the world, to ensure that our clients’ needs can be met wherever they operate. Please see our relationships page for information on our partners.
NIGEL LEEHANE – MANAGING DIRECTOR
Nigel leads CRA’s Management Systems and Corporate Responsibility services, working closely with clients at corporate and project level to identify risks and opportunities, and to develop programmes to deliver improvement. He has a considerable breadth of environmental consultancy and related industrial experience, focusing on the manufacturing (including engineering, automotive and aerospace), oil and gas, mining and quarrying, construction and infrastructure sectors.
He has guided more than 20 organisations in the development and implementation of ISO 14001 environmental management systems including integrated systems addressing health and safety. Some of these have been multi-national organisations with operations in many jurisdictions. An experienced auditor, Nigel has lead audit teams in global compliance, management systems, due diligence and corporate report verification audit programmes. He has represented the UK as technical expert to ISO working groups on auditing and auditor competence, and currently is technical expert to the working group on the revision of ISO 14001.
Nigel also leads CRA’s climate change services, including corporate greenhouse gas emissions reporting, GHG strategy and CRC compliance. He is an experienced trainer and facilitator, and has developed and presented courses and workshops ranging from carbon accounting to advanced EMS auditing and corporate sustainability strategy. His environmental consultancy experience also includes environmental impact assessment, contaminated land investigation, environmental permitting and environmental monitoring.
He has extensive experience of working overseas, including in Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Egypt, Ghana, Bangladesh, Canada, the US, Uganda and Hong Kong. Prior to moving into consultancy Nigel worked in opencast coal mining.
BRYAN HUGHES – DIRECTOR
Following his undergraduate studies in chemistry at Bangor University, North Wales, Bryan started his scientific career with two UK Pharmaceutical companies in South East England. He transferred his technical experience to the environmental sector when he joined BP in the mid 1980s. Whilst with BP, Bryan headed an applications laboratory that investigated potential commercial opportunities to treat water and industrial effluents using novel technologies developed by BP scientists at their Sunbury research centre.
More recently, Bryan was a Divisional Environmental Manager at BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) based in Buckinghamshire. At BAE he managed and advised on a range of compliance-driven environmental issues that were impacting a number of UK manufacturing sites in the 1990s. During that time he also saw the BAE business go through major reorganisation and significant rationalisation.
In 2000 Bryan became an Associate Director in the UK environmental consultancy business of Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB), based firstly at Chester and then Manchester. With PB, Bryan had responsibilities for project based teams that were involved in environmental permits, environmental compliance and due diligence audits, including management techniques for operational control and compliance. Bryan was also the Key Account Manager for the Royal Mail Group and the client manager and principal contact point for Airbus operations in the UK.
Bryan sees his appointment at CRA as a very exciting opportunity that will utilise his wide-ranging experience and multi-sector track record.
FRANK DENNIS – DIRECTOR
Frank has a wide range of assurance consultancy and industrial project management experience. He specialises in safety, health and environmental management at high hazard sites where he has worked as both operator and consultant. Describing himself as a competent generalist, Frank has lead projects ranging from environmental impact assessment and permitting to water resources and waste management. He has also managed large-scale options studies which have involved stakeholder consultation at a national level.
For much of the past 10 years, Frank has been involved with the nuclear industry where he has gained an international reputation in the area of environmental risk and contaminated land management. He has advised both the IAEA and Atomic Energy Canada Ltd, in addition to numerous UK facilities.
Frank has an extensive publications record. He is a Chartered Geologist, Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner and Member of the Association for Project Management. He holds dual Canadian and UK citizenship and speaks French and Spanish in addition to English.
DAVID GILL – PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT
David joined CRA in June 2010 as a Principal Consultant with his main focus being on environmental compliance and management in permitted industries. He has over 30 years experience in the industrial sector, initially as a process design engineer and latterly as an environmental consultant specialising in environmental permitting and integrated management system implementation and development.
David’s role at CRA involves providing services to clients in two main areas:
- Management system services for operating companies including ISO 14001:2004, OHSAS 18001:2007 and ISO 9001:2008 development/implementation; qualitative and quantitative risk assessments; technical appraisals; legal compliance auditing; environmental impact assessments; and due diligence assessments for mergers and acquisitions.
- Operator permitting services including managing interfaces with regulators to secure and maintain licences to operate; undertaking regulatory compliance audits; environmental impacts assessments for planning purposes; environmental permit application preparation; COMAH Safety Case assessments; and DSEAR assessments.
David is an experienced trainer and facilitator, and has developed and presented courses and workshops on management systems (ISO 14001:2004, OHSAS 18001:2007, PAS 55-1:2008, ISO 9001:2008, etc) implementation and operation for a wide range of clients in a variety of industrial sectors. His environmental consultancy experience also includes resources efficiency audits and assessments as an ‘Envirowise’ panel advisor.
David has a BSc (Hons) in Chemical Engineering, and is a Chartered Engineer (CEng). He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (FIChemE), a European Engineer (Eur Ing) and an IEMA Environmental Auditor (EARA).
If you would like to speak to David about a project or service, please contact him on dgill@cra.co.uk or 0115 965 6700.
GWENDA MCINTYRE – PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT
Gwenda is a PhD Chemist, Chartered Chemist and Chartered Scientist with an in-depth knowledge of process design and environmental compliance.
Since joining CRA in April 2006, Gwenda has been involved in work in a range of technical consultancy projects specialising in performance of Best Available Techniques (BAT) assessments for industries operating under the Environmental Permitting regime. The assessments, undertaken for clients in the chemicals, electricity, gas refining, plasterboard and food and drink sectors have included:
- Resource (water, energy, raw materials);
- Process, waste and accident management;
- Chemicals containment; and
- Management of combustion plant impacts.
As part of the BAT assessment process, Gwenda has performed environmental impact assessments involving air and water dispersion model development. She has gained experience in environmental permitting through development and submission of Environmental Permit applications and through technical drafting of permits for the Environment Agency.
Her knowledge of chemistry has been utilised in performing forensic effluent investigations and in chemical risk management, including assessment of COMAH compliance requirements. She has provided advice to European and US manufacturers on compliance with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) directive and assisted in raising awareness of REACH impacts through presentation at industry events. She has assisted Envirowise through reviewing and editing technical literature and delivery of a series of workshops on resource management for the Envirowise/Severn Trent Water joint water minimisation project.
Gwenda has a background in industrial technology development, specialising in management of industrial consortium based projects with a focus on delivery of environmental technologies to improve European manufacturing sustainability. She led the DTI sponsored Replenoil project, responsible for development of a range of commercial sustainable metal working fluids. In her previous roles at Pera and Solvay Interox Ltd, she gained considerable consultancy and client management experience through management of industry-led projects and through provision of technical guidance, solutions, training and information to external and internal clients.
Gwenda also has experience gained in establishing a successful independent consultancy. She set up her own business as a self employed consultant in September 2003 with contracts involving development of novel formulations to improve the sustainability of metal conversion coatings and metal cutting processes.
Prior to her work as an independent consultant and her role at Pera, Gwenda spent seven years in industrial R&D project management, working for Laporte Ltd and Solvay Interox Ltd. Over this time, she specialised in development and commercial application of peroxygen technologies for waste, water, gas and contaminated land treatment. Her role involved new process and product development, world wide technical support and technology evaluation projects. She averaged six technical support visits a month to industrial clients, providing advice on options for reducing effluent disposal costs through improvements to effluent and specific process water management. She gained hands-on experience of laboratory to full scale applications on site, in a wide range of industries with work involving process design and development, risk assessment, environmental chemistry and microbial physiology. Gwenda is an Inventor on three patents filed by Solvay Interox Ltd and Finnish Peroxides AB OY – US6165364, WO9742984, WO9525195 – and has authored papers on development of sustainable metal-working fluids, gaseous NOx emission control and dye waste treatment.
PAUL JOHNS – PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT
Paul is a Chartered Engineer and prior to joining CRA, held engineering and environmental, health and safety positions at high hazard COMAH sites in the south west of the UK. After graduating in mechanical engineering at Birmingham University, Paul served in the Royal Navy as an air engineer and has worked in other engineering and EHS roles for British Rail and a large FMCG manufacturer.
Recent experience includes the oversight of the decommissioning, decontamination and demolition of a large chemical plant and the remediation of contaminated areas of the site, together with the surrender of the installation’s environmental permit and the sustainable disposal of large quantities of hazardous waste. Paul also has experience of working in the oil and gas and agricultural sectors; recent projects have included a COMAH safety report review, HAZOPs and the production of odour management and site closure plans.
Paul has significant experience of liaison with regulators at high hazard sites and has been instrumental in the production of action plans agreeable to all parties that addressed the regulator’s concerns in a practical and cost effective manner, and within an achievable timescale. His extensive practical engineering experience has contributed to the resolution of issues that could adversely affect process safety.
Paul has extensive experience of working overseas and was instrumental in the purchase and import of a number of cosmetic and toiletry filling and packaging machines from East Asian manufacturers that required modification to incorporate the essential health and safety requirements for CE marking. Paul worked with the machine designers to ensure these requirements were met.
