Following our recent interview with Alexandria Henderson our Head of Product and Business Development we’d like to introduce you to another member of the SIAS team, our EPA Manager, Tony Prior.
Thanks for joining us Tony, can you start by letting our readers know who are you / what do you do?
So I’m Tony and my role is to work with providers and employers to ensure that SIAS delivers the best End-Point Assessment (EPA) service as we possibly can.
At the very heart of this is communication and face to face meetings so that we can better understand the needs of our providers, employer and particularly apprentices needs around EPA ultimately to ensure that they complete a successful apprenticeship.
How long have you been at SIAS and what’s your background?
I’ve been with SIAS now for about 12 months but prior to that I worked at our parent organisation Cogent Skills for around 10 years so have been around the group for a long time!
I started my career as in an engineering apprenticeship with Manesty Machines, then becoming a Design Engineer by trade in the pharmaceutical and brewery industries. I moved into a sales role with Dosing Pumps and then a CAD salesperson and trainer but interestingly I also have a background in Sign Making which is particularly useful given our recent move as a business into providing end-point assessment for the Signage Technician level 3 apprenticeship. I like to think I bring a really good hands-on knowledge to that.
Is there a typical day for you?
There’s definitely no such thing! I work with a host of providers and employers across a range of sectors and industries on existing apprenticeship standards and also new apprenticeship standards which makes every day interesting and also very varied.
There’s lots of things happening at SIAS – what excites you the most?
I think we have huge potential! We driving through lots of exciting changes to the way we do things, we’re setting the bar high and introducing ground-breaking ways of doing things in EPA. I truly believe that SIAS has the potential to become the best EPAO across all the sectors we currently work in and some that we don’t yet work in!
What’s the key projects you’re driving forward?
At the moment I have a focus on looking at new standards that are addressing new green technologies like hydrogen power, battery technology and wind power. These are all highly innovative and future areas for our economy so it’s really exciting to be at the forefront of that in the EPAO space.
Tell us a little bit about Tony outside of work?
One of my passions is running an over 35’s football Team called Woolton Vets FC. Woolton FC run over 150 teams making it the biggest grassroots club in Europe!
I also play in a band – Banjo & Guitar and love cooking especially Indian cuisine. I am a keen Carp angler and fish mainly lakes in the NW but I’ve recently returned from France where I caught a monster Sturgeon!
Because of my signage making background I’ve also been known to design and make my own T-shirts and knock out the occasional sign/graphic.