Meet the trainers
The professionals who train professionals
All FIA courses have been developed and are delivered by professionally qualified trainers. They regularly review the course content to ensure it provides both current and future learning needs. They all have unrivalled practical experience in their specialist areas.
FIA Trainers
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Trainer
Mark joined the FIA in October 2017 as a Trainer for the new Fire Detection & Alarm Qualifications. Since leaving University he worked for the Automotive sector as Project Manager for Radio based components. Prior to joining us he spent the last decade working for Sterling Safety Systems, starting out as Technical Support Engineer and progressing onto Technical Team Leader, specialising in Radio FD&A products. He has also been heavily involved in ISO9001.
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Will joined the Technical Team in December 2015 As a Technical Manager With a long history of working within the fire industry, starting out installing fire detection & alarm systems. He has previously worked for the Fire and Security Association and represented them on numerous British Standards committees. Will was the scheme manager for the BAFE SP203 & BAFE SP205 certification schemes operated by the ECA certification company. Prior to joining us he worked for 2 years at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) as Product Development Manager for the Electronic Security Team. As one of the trainers Will has been one of the key authors of the new training courses.
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With a previous background in the IT industry, Jordan has now been working with his father, Joe, for many years.
Jordan runs the majority of the FIA’s fire extinguisher maintenance courses. Thanks to a strong father and son work ethic, Jordan has mirrored Joe’s training style and knowledge, providing a seamless link between the two trainers.
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Having started his career as a design engineer in the electronics industry, Martin then acted as technical liaison within the sound and music industry. Since 1990 he spent 25 years as technical director for a leading UK independent fire and security company and was responsible for the training, quality and accreditation schemes. During this time he trained the FIA units 1-6 internally. In 2017 Martin became an independent lead auditor and trainer for FD&A systems and for a 3rd party accredited organisation for BAFE SP203.
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Phil has worked in the fire safety industry for over 30 years. During his career he has worked for several high profile companies and has been involved in fire detection and alarm, extinguishers, emergency lighting, safety signs, extinguishing systems, risk assessment and safety training.
Phil has been a quality manager, internal auditor, project engineer, systems designer, surveyor, estimator, commissioning engineer, service engineer, service supervisor, fire risk assessor and trainer. In these roles he has been responsible for several third party accreditation schemes, commercial and technical training of sales and engineering staff and writing technical support material.
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Graham originally joined the Technical Team as a Technical Manager in February 2011, but retired from the office Technical Team in 2017, and now presents many of our training courses. With a specialism in FD&A, he previously acted as Secretary to the FD&A Council. He also represented FIA on various technical standardisation committees including, BSI, CEN and ISO. As a trainer, Graham supports FIA professional training on BS 5839-1. Prior to joining us he worked for 12 years at Honeywell Life Safety as Regulatory Manager.
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Jonathan Gilbert started his career as a school teacher prior to moving into the control systems business as a trouble shooter for building management systems. Over 20 years ago he joined one of the large corporate fire and security companies as their International Training Manger and became a fire specialist. Since then Jonathan has taken on several fire detection roles including industrial and high hazard detection.
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Trainer
Steve joined the FIA in January 2019 and has worked within the fire & security industry for twenty-three years working both out on site as an installation and commissioning technician and also working in a design and estimating role. During this time, he has worked within a number of sectors, ranging from Security & CCTV, Fire Detection & Alarm systems and Fixed Gas Extinguishing. After spending some time working in Australia he returned to the UK in 2013
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Ian has 25 years experience of working with a wide range of fire and lighting manufacturers. He was co-opted onto BS 5266 part 1 in 2015 as the independent industry expert on new technology through his work with innovative manufacturers. He has lectured for CIBSE and the Lighting Industry Association. He has been a trainer for the FIA since 2012.
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Trainer
Tim joined the FIA in May 2023. He started his career in the fire industry in 1997 as a project engineer for a fire detection and alarm company mainly involved in the healthcare and custodial sectors. Since then, Tim has been involved in other areas such as fixed extinguishing, electronic security and fire risk assessment all whilst maintaining a keen interest in fire detection and alarm and had various roles which have included project management, internal auditing and training.
During his career he has been involved in the LPCB’s LP1014 certification scheme and BAFE SP203-1 certification schemes. This eventually led to him joining a third-party certification body operating the BAFE SP203-1, SP203-3 and SP203-5 certification schemes as well as security systems certification schemes.