University of Central Lancashire, Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Mechanical Engineering
Member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers
Chartered Engineer (UK)
Colin is a chartered mechanical engineer with more than two decades of specialist experience in marine, offshore and onshore cranes and lifting equipment. As Head of Crane Engineering Services at Solis Marine, Colin acts on behalf of P&I and H&M insurers, brokers, lawyers and shipowners/managers/operators. His work includes crane damage investigations, expert reports for arbitration and court proceedings, damage surveys, and the provision of loss prevention support to marine insurers.
Before joining Solis Marine, Colin spent over a decade at Harbour Energy, formerly known as ConocoPhillips and Chrysaor, where he served as LOLER Technical Authority and Subject Matter Expert for offshore cranes and lifting operations across the firm's UK assets. He had technical governance of the offshore crane fleet, with responsibility for safe operation, maintenance, modification and repair activities. He also managed the crane maintenance contractors and lifting inspection providers, ensuring legal compliance and the operational availability of offshore lifting equipment.
Colin authored and maintained the firm's lifting operations procedures, crane performance standards and maintenance protocols and defined and managed the Safety and Environmental Critical Elements for lifting systems and related assets. He led numerous incident investigations and root cause analyses, ranging from routine equipment breakdowns through to significant lifting incidents and provided technical advisory support across the operations, engineering, asset integrity, subsea, marine and decommissioning teams. This included the review of third-party vessel crane audits as part of Harbour Energy's contract acceptance process.
Colin's earlier career was with Sparrows Group, where he held progressively senior international roles between 2002 and 2014. As Engineering Team Leader in Aberdeen from 2013 to 2014, he provided technical guidance and quality assurance across several offshore crane and lifting service contracts in the UK sector.
From 2009 to 2013, Colin was Engineering Manager in Singapore, where he built up and led the local engineering team, workshop personnel and support staff. They delivered crane inspection, servicing, breakdown recovery and troubleshooting on regional fixed assets, MODUs, subsea support vessels, FPSOs and marine cranes. Under his leadership, the Singapore team delivered high-risk shipyard and offshore projects to tight timelines. Work included rope changeouts, boom and winch replacements, five-yearly MODU servicing, personnel-lifting compliance assessments, modifications, and the full replacement, commissioning and load testing of new cranes. The full range of equipment was covered, from onshore mobile and port cranes through to offshore pedestal cranes and complex subsea knuckle-boom cranes.
Earlier still, Colin worked as a Project Engineer in Sparrows' International Business Team from 2006 to 2008, supporting offshore, marine and onshore crane and lifting projects in Azerbaijan, South Korea, Singapore and West Africa. From 2005 to 2006, he was on a secondment to Sakhalin Energy Investment Company in Russia, providing technical expertise for crane, lifting and hoisting operations across both onshore and offshore facilities. The role covered new-build asset reviews, onshore pipelaying operations, port and mobile cranes, and the in-depth analysis of incident data to develop pragmatic, fit-for-purpose lifting procedures.
Colin began his crane engineering career in 2002 as a Project Engineer in Sparrows' Engineering Services team in Aberdeen, managing offshore, drilling, marine and overhead crane and mechanical handling projects. Work included slew-ring changeouts, five-yearly shipyard maintenance, subsea vessel crane support, and the installation of overhead gantry cranes at onshore processing terminals.