The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire June 2014 Edition | Page 11

REVVED UP

Swindon mechanic named
Suzuki’s Motor Technician
of the Year
Mark Illsley, a mechanic from Swindon based motor dealer
Suzuki and Hyundai Pebley Beach has been named Motor
Technician of the Year by Suzuki. Mark began his career at
Pebley Beach 8 years ago aged 19. Since then he has been
named Apprentice of the Year three times and was the fastest
in the Suzuki dealership network’s history to rise to the ranks
of Master Technician.
He was trained by Pebley master technician
Martin Owen – himself a four-times winner
of the Technician of the Year title – who
went on to represent Great Britain at
Suzuki’s Worldwide Technical Skills Contest
in Japan.

“He’s a walking
Haynes Manual!”
Managing Director of Pebley Beach Dom
Threlfall said: “Mark’s knowledge of motor
cars is almost encyclopaedic. Give him
any make and model of car and he’ll be
able to tell you when various components
were introduced. He’s a walking Haynes
Manual.”
There was little surprise when Mark flew
through the regional heats to reach the
final in Slovenia. ” said Dom.
“Suzuki came back to us and said that
Mark had achieved an unbeatable score.
No matter how well anyone else did, he
was guaranteed a place in the finals.”
During those finals, Mark went headto-head with four of the UK’s best Suzuki
technicians.
“They presented us with four cars,
each of which had a specific problem – a
warning light on the dashboard, poor
runn