Simon will look for local trainees

AN apprenticeship at 15 has paved the way for this Dundee business director.

Simon Creamer, from Fintry, now 47, is the director of local car body repair shop Carmeleon and says that the experience he gained when starting his career has helped make the business go from strength to strength.

Back in the late 1980s Simon started an apprenticeship for body repair at Tayford, which is now Arnold Clark, in Dundee.

There he learned the skills needed, including painting and panel beating, which led to him travelling to Germany and Sweden to do contract work for some of the top car manufacturers in the world.

Simon said: “In Germany I worked for Porsche and Volkswagen. I then worked for Volvo in Sweden and I worked for Aston Martin too.

“The experience I gained when learning how to deal with different cars and different situations has been key.

“It meant that when I started Carmeleon last June – where originally we were just doing diamond cut wheels in a shop we could only fit two cars into – the business started to snowball.

“We were able to move in to new premises at the end of January and we are already looking to expand again.”

The reason for expansion comes from a deal with Fix Auto, which holds contracts with a number of the top insurance companies in the UK to fix their customers vehicles.

The partnership came after the shop gained its BS10125 kite mark in about eight weeks, when it normally takes six to nine months to achieve. It’s become one of the few garages in the area to hold the qualification.

Simon added: “This is a really good trade to get into at the moment as people are paying big money but they are also crying out for people in the industry as there is a huge trade shortage just now so there is real money to be made.

“There are not many opportunities locally to learn the trade after Dundee College stopped the course, however, I am looking to take trainees on in the near future and it is really important to me that I give my jobs to local people.

“We have nine staff who all come from Dundee and we are hoping to raise that to 20-plus staff by the end of the year.

“I want to keep local folk in local jobs.”