TRAINING
Empathy – NETA director Sean Johnston knows life as a young trainee .
WORDS : DAVE ROBSON PICTURES : STUART BOULTON
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FORGING FUTURES
NETA Training Group , Pennine Avenue , Stockton .
He ’ s walked in their shoes – so when director Sean Johnston sees young people training at NETA , he knows how they ’ re feeling .
Set up in 1975 by industry FOR industry , NETA Training is an independent training provider covering the core skills of engineering , including fabrication , welding , electrical , mechanical , lifting , rigging , scaffolding and gas .
It has four bases – its Stockton HQ on Pennine Avenue , plus premises at Stockton ’ s Lustrum Industrial Estate , the Materials Process Institute at South Bank and Redcar and Cleveland College .
Part of the Education Training Collective ( Etc .), in any given year , NETA trains up to 6,000 adults , with around 200 young school-leavers studying full-time and around 140 apprentices on the books at any one time .
Employing around 65 people , including associates , it has three core areas : commercial business , apprenticeships and school-leavers .
And for Sean , who began his working life as an apprentice plumber before a career in Further Education and training , approachability and empathy are key to his leadership style .
He told Tees Business : “ I ’ ve never lost the thought of what it ’ s like to be a young kid in overalls , knocking around a training centre . “ I think when you start losing empathy , you start becoming detached .”
Becoming detached is not an accusation you can level at Sean , a personable and engaging 53-year-old dad-of-two who hails from Workington but has made his home on Teesside , having pursued a building studies course at the university in 1989 .
His FE career has included successful stints at Redcar and Cleveland College , Hartlepool FE , Lakes College in Workington and as curriculum quality improvement manager for the Construction Industry Training Board ( CITB ) before landing a role as NETA commercial training manager in 2019 .
He says : “ When I saw it was NETA , I
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