Lifetime Achievement Award

Purpose: The purpose of this award is to recognise a valuable and extensive contribution to the British Institute of NDT and the wider NDT/CM/SHM community by an individual who has been an active member of the Institute for an extensive period of time. 

Details of the award: The award will consist of a full-time registration at the NDT Annual Conference and accommodation for three nights, an engraved decanter and glasses together with a framed certificate signed by the President and the Chief Executive Officer, plus £300 cash. The award will also entitle the recipient to become a corresponding member of Council and any other committee if they so wish, subject to the usual exclusions.

Eligibility: The successful nominee must be reaching the end of their career and must have spent a substantial part of their career working in the field of NDT/CM/SHM or another Institute-supported discipline. They must have been a long-term active member of the British Institute of NDT and, during that period, must have supported the Institute as an active committee member. The successful nominee will stand out as having made a considerable contribution towards the charitable objectives of the Institute through having been proactive in the promotion of its activities. 

The proposer of the award should be a voting member of the Institute. If they are not, they will need to ensure the application is endorsed by an Institute voting member.

Frequency: It is important that such a prestigious award is only awarded when it is deemed right to do so. ONE per year.

Nomination arrangements: The nomination must be seconded by an elected member of Council and receive a 75% positive response from elected members who are in attendance on the day of the election; a proxy vote may be submitted to Karen Cambridge by any non-attending Council members. 

Awarding arrangements: The award will be made at the NDT Annual Conference Dinner and will be awarded by the President. The nominee will be given a ten-minute slot to respond after receiving the award to talk about their career. 

Committee: Council.

Winners 

Bill Brown 

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognises a valuable and extensive contribution to the British Institute of NDT and the wider NDT/CM/SHM community. The award acknowledges an individual who has spent most of their career in NDT and who has been an active member of the Institute for an extensive period of time.

The Lifetime Achievement Award for 2025 is awarded to Bill Brown. 

Bill started his career in non-destructive testing (NDT) in August 1969 as an apprentice NDT Technician at pressure vessel manufacturer Babcock & Wilcox Ltd in Renfrew, Scotland.

From 1974 to 1978, he worked with British Steel Corporation as the NDT Manager of the plate mill in Cambuslang, Glasgow, overseeing all NDT methods and applications, as well as managing major projects. 

1978 saw a career change as Bill joined Inspection Instruments (NDT) Ltd as a Sales Engineer.

In the late 1970s, the late Benny Donnelly of Source NDT Ltd had the idea that removing all the coatings for subsea magnetic particle inspection (MPI) should not be necessary. He set up a company to research, develop and manufacture an eddy current unit to inspect the welds through the coatings.

Bill was intrigued by this idea and in 1982 joined Source NDT Ltd, a subsidiary of the Tokola Group of Companies, set up to apply the developed eddy current unit offshore.

Here, Bill progressed to the role of Managing Director, overseeing a wide range of NDT applications and the day-to-day management of the company.

Unfortunately, the unit, through incomplete validation and lack of formal training and certification, did not prove to be the way forward. 

In 1985, Bill took the decision to try and progress this venture and set up Laighpark Technical Services Ltd.

With the invaluable support of Professor Willie McEwan and senior lecturer Roger Cummings at the Scottish School of NDT and together with Don Hocking and his skilled technical team including Dr John Rudlin and John Hansen, the Hocking equipment was proving to be a suitable alternative to MPI.

The combination of formal training, certification and detailed validation exercises by the Scottish School of NDT led to the acceptance of the application by the certifying authorities.

Bill joined Thistle Well Services in 1987, where they combined the eddy current application with industrial rope access techniques. This proved to be a very effective combination, saving literally millions of pounds in annual inspection costs, and quickly became an industry norm.

The inspection division of Thistle Well Services was purchased in 1994 by CAN (Offshore) Ltd and Bill was appointed to the role of Inspection Operations Director, responsible for the worldwide operations of one of Europe’s largest NDT companies. The role included the development of services in the Middle East, the USA, Azerbaijan and West Africa.

The validation process continued, mainly through practical inspections on jack-up and floating offshore units for major oil companies.

The validations consisted of 100% eddy current inspection followed by MPI. The results were very positive and confidence in the technique grew.

The initial third-party evaluation of the application and ongoing validation in this process was led by Larry Goldberg, owner of Sea-Test Services Inc Florida.

Bill and Larry spent many months together on board these offshore units conducting inspections.

Meanwhile, there was involvement in other validation exercises. University College London was the appointed management contractor for the manufacture of top-side and subsea components with specifically developed anomalies representative of those to be found in practice. Again, the application proved to be comparable with MPI.

This period of time involved the development of standards, including BS EN 1711 and AWS D1.1, together with authoring and presenting several papers on NDT and in-service inspection at international conferences such as those organised by the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing (BINDT), the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) and the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Bill joined Eurotechnology Group in 2004 as a Training and Consulting Engineer, overseeing technical and business development within the group and conducting third-party audits at Sandvik facilities, Sweden, and in the USA. 

This led to joining TWI a couple of years later and setting up a local Aberdeen branch for TWI, offering all of its training courses and subsequent certification.

In 2014, Bill joined TRAC Oil & Gas Ltd as Technical Manager and continues in this role, albeit on a semi-retired part-time basis.

For many years now Bill has been an active and participating Member of BINDT.

Bill founded the North East Scottish Branch when he moved to Aberdeen in the early 1980s and has supported the Branch since then, helping to organise and manage many technical, sporting and social events.

Bill continues to be a member of several BINDT committees and would like to think he continues to make a positive contribution to the development of training and certification.

He is pleased to have managed, through further education and training, to gain the relevant certification required of the roles he has held, for example Chartered Engineer, BSc (Hons) in Non-Destructive Testing and PCN Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications in ultrasonics, MPI, liquid penetrant inspection and eddy current testing. Bill was also the recipient of the BINDT Nemet Award in 2011.