Meet Mr Binks - Operations Manager

Meet Mr Binks, the school’s Operations Manager in charge of the janitors, cleaners, and grounds. Day-to-day, Mr Binks works largely behind the scenes here at Elgin Academy, coordinating with staff to keep our school running smoothly.

From humble beginnings as an apprentice electrician at RAF Lossiemouth, he climbed to a qualified civilian electrician at RAF Kinloss, before moving into the office there to work as a planned maintenance specialist. Mr Binks recalls the days “before they even put them onto computers, so it was all paper – we had big charts that we used to use”. Pursuing progression in his advancing career, he took the role as civilian technician responsible for works up to £15,000,000. Then, a drastic change in setting as he went to Iraq during the war in 2003 and 2004 to manage planned maintenance systems for the British Military in the south of the country, as well as building an accommodation camp for an American company in Baghdad before returning to the UK to maintain housing for the Ministry of Defence. He then found a job back in Moray at Decora as a Kitchen and Bathroom Designer, and afterwards finally settling in his job at Elgin Academy, utilising the breadth of skills he has developed across his working life.

Of course, that doesn't mean the job is straight forward for him – “it’s like a juggling act – there are at least four parties to the contract; the funders, the council, the school staff, and the pupils. Everyone is always looking for something and it’s not necessarily doing the same thing that keeps them all happy”.

At this point in our interview, we are interrupted by a request about a blocked toilet on the green floor, demonstrating that “anything that goes wrong in this school comes through this office to be fixed”. Once this is dealt with, Mr Binks acknowledges that, unfortunately, a lot of the work stems from pupils causing damage and he feels that often the pupils are unaware of the disruption this creates for his team.

Ultimately, Mr Binks takes pride in his work, in fixing and repairing things so well that they go unnoticed. “Some people have compared us to ducks floating on a pond; the duck looks very serene as it’s floating along, but below the surface the little legs are going ten to the dozen to keep it going, so yes, I’d say we’re a bit like that”.