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Our team
With a broad, international business and operational background, Ian is a highly qualified engineer who has lived in Africa, Europe and America and has worked extensively in China and South East Asia.
As a Senior Manager for Domino Printing Sciences, President of Universal Instruments, Managing Director at Alstom Transport and owner-manager of his own multinational metal fabrication business, Ian has managed manufacturing operations and businesses in Europe, Asia and America, and software development in India.
The turnaround Ian lead at the helm of Alstom Transport featured in the Discovery Channel’s Ultimate Factories series. Ian has project managed and overseen multiple ERP deployments including SAP ByD and MAAPICS, Ask ManMan, JD Edwards, SAP R5 twice.
He is currently a strategic advisor and participant on two Small Business Advisory boards supporting Owner Operated Manufacturing Businesses.
Leigh is a hugely experienced external technical sales manager with over 20 years fan industry experience, whose main role is supporting existing customers with expertise on the efficient application of fans to their business processes and the development of new customers across the UK.
Graeme Mount is an established engineer at Halifax fan, having served his apprenticeship as a heavy-gauge fabricator at Hartley and Sugden Boiler Makers. Graeme joined Halifax fan as a skilled engineer working on the fabrication of fan cases. He followed this hands-on experience with a number of years as a draughtsman in the drawing office.
This depth of experience and fan knowledge has led to Graeme now being one of Halifax’s dedicated sales team, bringing much valuable insight to customers’ fan applications.
Paul commenced his employment at Halifax Fan over four decades ago in the capacity of an apprentice sheet metal worker.
With an outstanding performance as a mechanical fitter for a span of 20 years, he subsequently ascended to his present multifaceted position encompassing logistics, quality control, SAP support, and refurbishment coordination.
Leveraging his extensive expertise, Paul possesses the ability to effectively communicate with various stakeholders across departments and external entities such as freight forwarders, suppliers, customers, production planners, inspectors, and shop floor personnel.
Sharon joined Halifax fan in 2009 as a production assistant, straight from university on our graduate intake program. Her education was in mechanical design and manufacturing and she was promoted to production manager in 2012 and transferred to project manager in 2015. Due to the rapid growth of the business, Sharon was promoted to operations manager in 2019. 12 years with Halifax has given Sharon sound knowledge of all aspects of our operation and customers and as a dedicated and experienced FAN:gineer, she heads up our senior team in Shenzhen.
Malcom (The Fan Man) Staff heads the Halifax team, having joined the company in 2004 following a highly successful career as Sales and Marketing Director in industrial control electronics with global player Danfoss.
Malcolm’s impact on Halifax Fan has been substantial through the implementation of strong modern business strategies and the identification and penetration of vibrant global markets. Continuous investment in people and technology has transformed a once local fan company into a prominent player on the global stage with factories on three continents.
Based primarily in Asia he along with the team In China have built in 15 years a strong vibrant business with two manufacturing locations and over 250 people serving the global market with high quality industrial fans.
Wayne McKenna is a seasoned professional at Halifax Fan, bringing a wealth of experience to his role as the Manager of the Aftermarket Department. Wayne's journey with the company began as a sheet metal apprentice, and over the course of seven years, he gained valuable insights by working across various departments. This diverse background eventually led him to transition into an office-based position, where he pursued further education at Huddersfield University.
During his tenure at Halifax Fan, Wayne has primarily served as an accomplished engineer, providing sales support both internally and externally. His expertise lies in front-end engineering, involving the meticulous selection and specification of fans, as well as the preparation of technical tenders.
With a remarkable 25 years of experience under his belt, Wayne has recently assumed leadership of the aftermarket department.
In his current role, Wayne and his team focus on core offerings such as spare parts and refurbishments. Working closely with our service and sales teams, Wayne ensures seamless coordination to meet customer needs. In addition to his managerial responsibilities, Wayne plays an instrumental role in mentoring new sales engineers and developing essential procedures, reports, programs, and reference materials for internal and customer use.
Charles joined Halifax Fan as a graduate in 2011, following 5 years as a sales engineer. Promoted to Shenzhen sales manager in 2016, he is smart, serious, and very organized which makes him look and think more maturely than his actual age.
Talent like Charles’ will continue the growth that has made Halifax Fan a global company but especially in China where Halifax’s two plants are supporting China’s economic growth.
Doug Nelson was awarded his degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
His thirty-year career in the American fan industry, spans the whole business gamut from fan design through technical sales of industrial fans, dealing with customers’ applications and process needs.
Ian joined Halifax Fan from a product development role in the water industry. Following a long career of driving forward product knowledge and application solutions, he is now recognised as one of the fan industries leading fan specialists.
Ian has actively participated in fan development, considering many aspects from CFD analysis to design for manufacture. This breadth of experience coupled with a strong technical background gives Ian unique insight into the life of fan designs, from initial concept through to standardised designs and fans in operation.
As well as product development Ian's ability to think outside the box means that he often engages in a Project Engineer role to design solutions to meet complex customer requirements. This provides a path for less experienced or talented engineers to follow, both with respect to the designs and their fan knowledge. Ian is a key player in Halifax’s ability to be not just another fan company, but a provider of diverse customer solutions.
Waheed joined Halifax Fan following a 7 years spell in the fan industry. A talented individual, he is currently attending further education at the University of Huddersfield, working towards a B.Eng degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering then pursuing his Masters and Ph.D in the coming years.
A highly skilled mechanical engineer, Waheed has worked across the company from workshop apprentice, apprentice engineer, contracts engineer, project engineer, design engineer and R&D engineer.
Since joining Halifax Fan in 2007 Diane has seen Halifax Fan in China grow rapidly and for the past five years has been working in the Halifax Fan Shenzhen branch as a sales engineer.
Diane has a strong sales and marketing background, developing new markets and re-organising teams based on growing business demands. 10 years’ experience coupled with effective communication skills enable her to provide Halifax customers with the utmost professional service.
Our departments
The Halifax design team was originally located in UK. To address the needs of China and other regions, we have grown and developed a strong design team in China. Through a focus on design quality, programmable designs, and leadership, we ensure that our customers receive fans that are designed to consistent standards across our global enterprise. We also engage in regular design reviews, assessing design features, methods of construction and latest developments to ensure that our designs meet and/or exceed current industry standards. This enables us to work with customer across the widest possible range of industries.
With increasingly stringent specifications and the growing need for documentation, our drawing office staff are highly proficient at producing today’s documentation needs.
Since fan inlet cones are one of the most critical and complicated components, each cone is hand formed.
Since our inception as a fan company, Halifax has focussed on product development. This involves development not only of the fans themselves but through our understanding of those products, the tools to design them. Halifax now has a wealth of experience and knowledge in driving forward solutions. This enables us to not only develop more efficient, more reliable fans but also to engage with the customer to deliver a unique solution and to work closely with customers to resolve operational issues. This forms a corner stone of Halifax’s ability to be a customer solution driven company.
Our skilled fan case team is manned by qualified, experienced sheet metal workers. Out team includes skilled laser operators.
Our fitting team are all experienced mechanical, fabrication engineers, some of whom also work on customers’ sites. We also have experienced painters who apply wet, powder-coating, and multi-layer chemical / marine finishes. All our fitting engineers are experienced at diagnostics, refurbishments, performing trim-balancing, mechanical run tests, vibration analysis, laser coupling alignment all of which are critical to final fan performance, efficiency and reliability.
We have a growing admin team that deals with all our communications, computers, servers, and human resources.
Our impeller fabricators are experts in building critical rotating equipment, where only the best will do. Each rotor is hand built and welded by our highly trained impeller team.
All Halifax’s welders, using TAG, MAG, & MMA machines, are coded for all the common and some of the exotic engineering steels required by more demanding fan applications and processes.
