The Tony Lager Award
Award for BINDT members, Branch Award
Award information
About the award: The Tony Lager Award was introduced in 1996 in honour of the late Tony Lager, who served the Institute for many years on head office and Branch committees, including Council. Tony passed away in July 1996. The award is for meritorious service to an Institute Branch by an individual.
Purpose: For meritorious service to an Institute Branch by an individual.
Details of the award: A framed certificate, £200 cash and an invitation to the NDT Annual Conference Dinner with one night's accommodation.
Eligibility: Any individual Institute member.
Eligibility: Any individual Institute member.
Nomination arrangements: Branches to nominate. Contributions to the Branch and other Institute activities should be described.
Committee: MQ&E.
Winners
2025 winner: Tim Cresswell
The Tony Lager Award for 2025 is awarded to Tim Cresswell.
Tim started work in non-destructive testing (NDT) at the age of 19 on conventional coal-fired power stations using what was then standard testing equipment of ultrasonic testing (UT) oscilloscopes and exploding mag sets. He gained PCN certification in ultrasonics, radiography, magnetic particle inspection (MPI) and dye penetrant inspection (DPI). More technical experience and specialist in-house qualifications followed after the company won a contract to carry out maintenance NDT on all the existing nuclear power stations in the UK.
Tim went on to become site supervisor and eventually site manager on various maintenance and manufacturing sites around the country. After working for numerous NDT companies as contract manager, Tim is currently employed by Intertek NDT Services and has recently been responsible for managing and controlling
a multi-million-pound major rail project for Hitachi Rail. Intertek was contracted to detect and monitor defects in aluminium body welds across a vehicle fleet.
Tim is currently managing a contract at Alstom Derby to develop and implement a high- and low-frequency eddy current procedure for inspecting new-build carriage body welds alongside a project at Alstom Crewe to develop an eddy current array inspection procedure for inspecting complex vehicle axles and a further contract for Caledonian Sleeper Limited to monitor defect propagation in aluminium rail vehicles.
Tim was with the team that restarted the East Midlands Branch of the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing (BINDT) in January 2012 after many inactive years. He was voted in as Programme Organiser and spent at least eight enjoyable years in that post.
The Tony Lager Award was originally established as a prize for the Institute Branch achieving the highest number of new members in the year. This criterion was altered after 2000; until then the winners of the award were:
1995 North West
1996 Solent
1997 London and Home Counties
1998 West of England/West Midlands
1999 South Wales/West of England
2000 South Wales
Since then, the award has been for meritorious service to an Institute Branch by an individual. The past winners are:
2002 Mr A Raine
2003 Mr P Stephens
2004 Mr J Pouncy
2012 Mr D Breeze and Mr B Webb
2013 Mr B Murray, Mr D Betts and Mr M R Dawson
2014 Mr B Shannon
2015 Mr A Hunscott
2019 Mr B Naylor
2020 Dr Mike Farley BSc PhD FInstNDT FInstEnergy
2021 Pete Burrows MInstNDT
2022 Fraser Hardie
2023 Raymond J R Wilson
2024 Bill Brown
A nomination form can be downloaded here.
Details of Branch awards can be found here.
Details of all Institute awards can be found here.
Details of Branch awards can be found here.
Details of all Institute awards can be found here.
