Apprentice champions win skills crown

A traditional South Devon garage founded by four brothers in 1957 which prides itself on training up its team from the local community is in the running to win a top national award for the way it has thrown its weight behind the apprenticeship scheme.

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Cox of Torbay, founded by the Cox brothers, Timothy, Nick, Peter and Richard, in a “wooden shack with a couple of petrol pumps” next to the old ring road, at Churscombe Cross, has been crowned South West regional Micro Employer of the Year.

They won the award at the South West Skills Awards 2010 at a ceremony in the Exeter Chief’s Stadium out of a field of 35 regional contenders.

They will now be among regional finalists competing for the national crown at the National Apprenticeship Awards in an Oscars style awards ceremony at the Park Plaza, Westminster Bridge, London on July 15.

Sales manager Alun Lewis, who is responsible for their current South Devon College trained apprentice Callum Brennan, 17, has spent the last 18 years carrying on the policy set by the Cox brothers – a rolling programme which sees a new apprentice taken on every two years as the previous apprentice goes into year three. Callum’s predecessor Dominic Collins, another South Devon College apprentice, has just qualified.

Alun, who was introduced to the garage trade himself through the old South Devon Technical College, said: “This award was unexpected. I came here 18 years ago and I have just carried on with the good work laid down by my predecessors – that was the Cox brothers, obviously. They have always nurtured the apprenticeship scheme.”

He added: “We have never won anything before.  I was a bit bemused by the whole thing because it is so much part of the ritual here that I didn’t understand we were special. I didn’t realise that we did it a lot more that others. I thought a lot of local business did, but it seems not.”

Now the brothers have four garages, Waterside Garage, Goodrington, Aller Vale Garage, Kingskerswell, Marldon Service Station and Glendower, Upton Road, Torquay. All but one of the seven current Marldon garage staff have been apprentices including service manager Matthew Rice.

At Glendower Garage the current service manager Derek Cload and vehicle technician John Vining have clocked up a combined 83 years service to the firm – and both started there as apprentices, Derek in 1968 and John in 1969. They have stayed there ever since. The third member of the team Steve Robinson, another former apprentice, has been there 20 years. The Cox brothers took over the Glendower in 1980.

Alun added: “This comes from the Coxes, their policy ever since I came here was to employ someone you knew. You will never see a position at Cox of Torbay advertised. We like to work by word of mouth and we like to employ locally.  It fits in with their game plan in having apprentices, because you can choose people who are local.

“If you deal with us and you walk into our shop it is full of local kids.  This is a big thing here. Everyone who lives around here who knows, and deals with the Cox brothers, knows of us. They all have their kids here working in the shop, Sundays and Saturdays. It is not just in the workshops that it is encouraged. It is all aspects of the business. It is like kindergarden here some days, but it works. It is good. Later on when these children get jobs they become our customers too.”

Alun added: “My father would have called it old school... old school values ... and to work for the Cox brothers is the same, the values are still there.”

In a letter congratulating the firm on their win Simon Waugh, Chief Executive of the National Apprenticeship Service said:

“Your entry has made remarkable steps since you entered the competition. It was among the small percentage that progressed through the initial assessment stage and on to the regional judging panel. You were then crowned regional winner and reached the final stages where you will join only the very best entrants from around the country for the national judging. It is really tremendous for you to have progressed this far.”