Gary Vaughan - operations director
I have been involved with boats pretty much all my life. Whilst at school, I learned how to sail and race dinghies at Christchurch Marine Training Centre. I managed to get a bit of a reputation for breaking boats, which was a good thing in a way, because the centre ran a 'You Break It - You Fix It' policy. With their guidance, I learned a lot more about basic boat building and repairing techniques than I wanted to know at the time. In the early 80s, I started crewing on larger keeled yachts, which led me to participating in various regattas, and races including Cowes Week and the Fastnet.
On leaving school I first worked for my Dad’s marine business, that operated workboats in the Western Solent, then in 1988 I enrolled into boat-building college, on a course run by the Marine Builders Training Trust.
In the summer of 1989, I joined Green Marine - where I stayed for the next 26 years, working my way up from being a Trainee in what was then a small boatyard of 16, to becoming the Production Manager of the race boat sites in Lymington, then to becoming responsible for the whole of the operational side of the business in Hythe.
The great thing about Green Marine for most of my time there, was a great togetherness and team camaraderie, all working hard for the company, but also working for each other which not only produced exceptional products, but also produced a great atmosphere to work in. Within 15 years, Green Marine had gone from being 16 people in a small shed, to over 120 people working on four factory sites - and I had become overall Production Manager of the three Lymington sites.
In 2010, my responsibilities further increased, I was made responsible for finding and setting up the new factory in Hythe, where I also had the management responsibility of the entire operational side of the company, including all Production, Factory and Quality Control.
I left Green Marine in early 2016 and went to work for Premier Composite Technologies (PCT) in Dubai, as the Marine Manufacturing Manager, responsible for the overall production management of the Marine department, which produced a broad spectrum of both sailing yachts and power boats.
In the Summer of 2016, I returned to England, and soon after started talking to Geoff about making FIBRE Mechanics a reality…...
In my career, I have been involved with well over 250 new builds, of both Yachts & Power boats, including, Volvo/ Whitbread Ocean Race Yachts, Americas Cup Yachts, Wally Cento’s, IMOCA 60’s, Mini Maxis, TP52s, Fast Cruising Catamaran, Superyachts up to 130’ and a fleet of IC37s. Also involved in the production of many power boats, custom tenders, and many new builds for the RNLI.
I have also involved with numerous refit and modification projects, many complicated composite components, and including several secretive military projects.
My role at Fibre Mechanics is the Director of Operations and am responsible for the operational side of the business, my contribution, is my calm and balanced approach to composite production, my committed and can-do approach to making things happen, coupled with my knowledge & experience of setting up and running a leading edge, high-tech, world class operation and the attitude required to generate a committed /can-do culture from our workforce and our mission, is to create a sustainable and world class, industry leading company, with the environment where workers feel happy, fulfilled and feel part of, whilst producing an excellent standard of work to budget, quality and everyone feels proud to be involved.
