Luke engineers accolade
A dyslexic dad-to-be who kept residents connected in the wake of Storm Arwen last year has been named Openreach’s Engineer of the Year 2022.
Engineer Luke Picken, from Maybole, worked around the clock to restore services to those who lost their broadband due to damage in the devastating storm in November.
The 29-year-old pinpointed and repaired dozens of faults across South West Scotland, and beat off stiff competition from 160 UK finalists in the Openreach Shining Stars Awards 2022 to bag the top prize.
And Luke, who is awaiting the arrival of his first child with wife Emma - also an Openreach network engineer - has picked up his distinctive prize in Ayr - a brand new van with the personalised number plate OR22 ENG.
Luke said:“I’m very humbled that the company and my colleagues thought I deserved an award of such magnitude. With many people still working from home, the internet is essential.“
Luke’s recognition is all the more special due to his struggles with dyslexia, a subject the specialist fibre engineer has spoken little about in the past.
He added:“I’ve always struggled with reading and writing, especially when I was younger, and I worried it would close doors to me. I hope my story shows other people with dyslexia that it doesn’t have to hold you back- you can get on despite it and achieve great things.”
Luke’s patch manager Alastair Gilroy hailed him “an absolute superstar”.
Alastair said:“Luke tracked down every fault location then co-ordinated our response to reconnect customers, often working into the night to find and fix an issue lurking somewhere in the network.”