Bob Hall,

2007 ECA President

David Pollock,

Group Chief Executive Officer

Bob Hall is President of the Electrical Contractors' Association (ECA) for 2007-08.

Bob started his career as a student apprentice with Southern Electric in 1966 and retired as chief executive of the Scottish and Southern Energy Contracting Group, which includes Southern Electric Contracting (SEC) and Thermal Transfer, at the end of May 2005.

Bob gained a first class honours degree in electrical engineering at Portsmouth Polytechnic. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology.

He progressed his career with Southern Electric to a senior management level, with responsibility for a range of different business areas, until 1991 when he was appointed as contracting director for the newly formed Southern Electric Contracting Ltd. He was appointed as managing director in 1997 and became the Contracting Group chief executive in 2002.  He was also a member of the Scottish and Southern Energy Executive Committee.

In 1992 SEC had a turnover of 50m, was loss making, and employed some 1200 staff who transferred into the new, wholly-owned subsidiary. For the year ended March 2005, the last year before Bob retired, SEC had a turnover of 220m, made a net profit of 15.2m and employed 2800 staff.

Bob was on the Board of ESCA Services and has been on the ECA Finance Committee and on the Board of both the Electrical Contractors' Insurance Company (ECIC) and the Electrical Contractors' Insurance Services (ECIS) since June 2003. He also took over the chairmanship of the Education and Training Committee in 2006.

Whilst with SEC, Bob was a strong supporter of apprentice recruitment and training and also of a staff development framework to develop engineers and managers. He served on the Board of the industry's sector skills council, SummitSkills, from 2005 to 2006, stepping down to take on his duties as ECA President.

Bob and his wife, Sandra, have been married for 33 years. They have no children. They have an apartment in Menorca, which they bought to use in their retirement!

David Pollock has been Director of the Electrical Contractors' Association since 1997.  He has actively worked to create a ‘business club’ feel to the Association, providing advice on everything from health & safety to IT and debt recovery while at the same time offering access to a powerful network of organisations.

During his time as Director, the Association has seen more than a 30 per cent increase in membership to its current level of some 2,800 – covering all segments of the electrical contractors’ market, from small-scale domestic traders to large multi-service companies employing thousands of contractors.  At the same time, the sector has doubled in value to more than £10 billion today (2006), with ECA membership making up over 50 per cent of this figure.

In recent years, David and his highly experienced team have developed closer relationships with other institutions such as the NICEIC and SELECT. David played an integral role in developing the ECA’s participation with AMICUS on the Joint Industry Board (JIB), which has led to the modernisation of industry labour relations. 

Under David’s leadership, the Association has influenced recent legislation such as Part P of the Building Regulations to improve standards within the industry and its communications have reached thousands of members and key stakeholders offering invaluable advice and support.  All the time, he has held dear the ethos that the ECA is an organisation that is run by its members, for its members.

Prior to joining the ECA, David was Director of the Newspaper Publishers Association (1992-7) and during his career he has worked for the Ministry of Defence and the London Stock Exchange.  He has served on the Council of the Royal Institution of Great Britain and is a Freeman of the City of London.