Officially the first full-time HyKit employee, Dr John Vickers feels a real sense of connection and hands-on leadership as he helps guide industrial firms through the net zero transition.
Rapid progression within various organisations, coupled with his experience across multiple energy technologies, including nuclear, has given him a seat at the top table.
“On my first day working alongside JCB, I ended up sat across from the engineers who had been working on the project for a few years and the Director of Product Innovation turned to me and said ‘Alright, John, what do you think about that?’. I’d been in the business for about two hours, but I remember thinking ‘Right let’s get to work’.”
After completing both his degree and PhD at the University of Leeds, John moved to Air Products where he spent five years across the engineering and operations departments.
“I joined Air Products on its PhD graduate scheme which was fantastic experience,” John explained. ”It’s not very common to have a PhD scheme, and it led me to try a few different departments – working in research and development, project management and artificial intelligence, which was a really interesting job.”
It was during this time that John landed a position on the board at BCECA, the umbrella organisation providing a voice for the engineering contracting companies that are delivering the UK energy transformation.
“Spending some time on the board of a trade organisation and understanding how that world works was fascinating and definitely helped my career progression,” he said.
“Being surrounded by peers but having the same investment in the decision-making ability was incredibly empowering and I am hugely grateful for the time I spent with BCECA.”
At NanoSUN, John rose from research and development manager, in charge of future products and auxiliary equipment, to Chief Engineer, responsible for all engineering aspects of the business. “So going from the stuff that goes around a mobile refueller to enable greater adoption and efficiency – things like compression, pressure recovery and cooling systems for fast refuelling – to being responsible for getting the whole program back on track”
But the reason for joining HyKit was stark.
“The bit that brought me to HyKit was the whole ecosystem,” he says. “If hydrogen is going to work, it needs all the constituent parts working cohesively together. To be part of an organisation with all those parts under one roof, so to speak, is a bigger challenge but a much bigger opportunity.”
To further those aims, John works with the British Compressed Gases Association, BSI and ISO to write the standards and codes of practice to allow the safe effective use of hydrogen.
“The hydrogen market is evolving at a rapid pace and this group can play a part in every bit of it, from developing hydrogen to delivering it at source.
“We have the opportunity to lead not just the UK but the world in adopting clean fuels, and we need to take it.”
