After 17 years and many happy hours working for Kelston Sparkes, Quarrying Director, Phil Oddy, has hung up his steel toe capped boots at the age of 67. With a career spanning almost half a century, Phil joined KSG in 2008 after many years working for corporates in the quarrying sector. He was asked to join the family firm as Operations Manager by Managing Director, Alan Sparkes and has never looked back. He has gone on to become a renowned and highly respected figure in the industry and has just reached his 40 year milestone as a member of the Institute of Quarrying.

His remit at the start of his career at the company was to build the quarrying business and develop new long-term contracts, but in 2008 the financial crisis had well and truly taken hold and opportunities were few and far between. Slowly but surely, Phil built up the crushing & screening business and found long term load & haul contracts including Torr Works, Callow Rock & Warmwell, to name just a few. One of his stand out moments was being rewarded for his hard work with a promotion to a Director role in 2014. Phil is also rightfully proud of his record in improving the Health & Safety culture within Kelston Sparkes, which now has its place at the very heart of the business.

Working for a family company, according to Phil, was full of surprises from the start.  Once, when travelling throughout the South West visiting contacts, his car broke down and he called Alan for help;

“A Kelston Sparkes van and trailer was despatched to pick me up, along with my car and that was the last I ever saw of it; a brand new car was delivered on the Monday morning and mine had been part-exchanged. That’s what happens when you work in a fantastic family firm with characters such as Alan & Rob. I have thoroughly enjoyed the last 17 years within Kelston Sparkes, the people are salt of the earth and the management really look after the staff.”

Phil. who is now a few weeks into his retirement, has already made great use of the time by indulging in his passion for walking in Exmoor, helping with the family horses and travelling. In fact, he’s not sure when he found the time to work!

On behalf of all the staff that worked with Phil, we would like to thank him for all that he has done within the company and industry. We wish him the very best for the future.

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