FEATURE
BY PAUL FRASER
Durata sets sight on global reach from Teesside base
DATA
Teamwork - John McGee from Durata with Chris Georgiou of IMS .
CAPTURE
Direction - Durata project manager Omar Yousef with a member of the team .
“
We can build you a data centre anywhere in the world .” That was the bold statement from John McGee , managing director of critical power infrastructure firm Durata after entering another exciting chapter .
But who would disagree ? Middlesbrough-based Durata is going from strength to strength and recently took another step forward in its ambitious growth strategy .
Eight years after John and installations director Andy Mullen launched Durata as a critical power specialist , the decision was taken to venture into containerised modular data centres and electrical switchrooms .
Not only is there a head office at Tees AMP on Middlesbrough ’ s Riverside Park , but this latest strategic move has also seen the company open a bespoke unit on Cleveland Trading Estate in Darlington alongside global multi-disciplinary firm IMS Energy .
On one side of the unit IMS will carry out the fabrication of the modular buildings . On completion , they will move over to Durata to be fitted out from an electrical and mechanical perspective . It ’ s a partnership primed for UK and global markets .
Speaking from his boardroom on Teesside , John said : “ The one we will build
next is a temporary uninterruptible power supply ( UPS ). It will be manufactured so that it can be scalable too , and target the hire and rental market .
“ They are made in the North-East , something we are extremely proud of , but distributed throughout Europe . It ’ s our plan to use the Teesside Freeport as much as we can .
“ For seven years up until the beginning of the pandemic I used to spend two or three days a week in London . I have been down there three times since . Everyone now knows about Teesside and we want to distribute our modular buildings from here .”
IMS ’ commercial director Chris Georgiou says clients are typically “ in offshore wind , oil and gas , modular data centres and fibre network ”. IMS and Durata are now collaborating to produce containers as “ high integrity e-houses and electrical rooms ”, he added .
Clearly , in this day and age , every business of every size needs a communications and power system . The emergence of the modular building is designed to significantly reduce the risk of losing data during any power outages . John , who was born and raised in Marton and trained as an electrician in 1988 , explained : “ The way the industry is going , the hyper-scale data centres are massive . If we build a containerised data centre , you can have one in a matter of months instead of going through the long process of planning and procurement .
“ For example , you can rent a unit on Riverside Park and put a container in if you have the right supply . With fibre network operators it means the need for containerised solutions is all over the country – and all over the world . Modular buildings are a vogue topic .”
Company secretary Alison McGee is also Durata ’ s quality director and because of her background in the corporate environment she has successfully helped Durata ’ s brand grow , despite Covid-19 .
Alison said : “ When the first lockdown happened , everything went onto Zoom or the like . You had a minute to tell everyone about your business on network forums . I did those all day , every day . My eyes were bloodshot . But it really worked .
“ It ’ s about raising that brand awareness and we have done that . It ’ s been about getting credibility too , and we have done that as well .”
Having achieved so much in Durata ’ s eight years , the challenge is to build on that success and try to do even better . There is talk of launching a world-class training academy on Teesside .
Given the partnership with IMS Energy , things are shaping up well and the firm
62 | Tees Business