Directors & Senior Operational Management

Roger Rawlings - Group Chairman

Roger has worked in the fire and security industry since 1973 when he joined the Chloride Group. He left Chloride to take up the post of sales & marketing director with the specialist emergency lighting company, Secundalux. In 1980 he formed a new fire protection company with a former business colleague, very soon after which Swift Alarms was acquired. Swift became an independent business in 1987 and has been headed by Roger since that time.

Paul Grist FRSA - Group Managing Director

Paul has been involved in the UK security industry since leaving school in 1977. During that time he has worked at a senior level in many of the country's best known security companies including, Group 4 Securicor & ADT. Paul was head of both special projects & marketing for Secom and sales and marketing director of Argus Fire & Security Group PLC. Latterly he was the commercial director of a £50M + Contracting & FM business.

Peter Thompson FCA - Finance Director

Peter qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1974. Since then, apart from three years when he was a finance director of a thriving electronics company, he has been a partner in a number of accountancy practices. The last of these was D.F. Puttock & Co., our previous accountants, and when he retired in 2008 Peter accepted the invitation to be involved with our Group.

Baron Paul Waterman BSc - Technical & Health & Safety Director

Paul holds a BSc in Computer Science and has been employed in the private security sector since 1979, when he worked for the Security & Safety Group. He Joined Swift as a sales engineer in 1987 and went on to develop the companies IT systems making Swift the first UK based company to employ remote diagnostics within its security systems. He was promoted to technical director in 1991 and was appointed health & safety director in 2000. Paul is Chairman and Regional Chairman of the NSI/NACOSS Gold Scheme.

Andrew Webb MinstD - CEO Swift Auto-Gates

Andrew has worked as managing director for a number of national & international security businesses since 1974. He sold his family owned business High - Tech Group Services, which specialised in major integrated CCTV and security systems, to Reliance Security Group plc in 1999. He was retained as managing director of Reliance's electronic security systems operation until 2002. After retiring from Reliance, Andrew established a successful specialist gate automation business. This was acquired by Swift in 2007 and Andrew was retained as CEO to head-up the combined business.

Alan Neenan - CEO Safyre & Safyre Suppression Systems

Alan started his career in 1966 in the field of mechanical and electrical building services design and contracting and after successfully moving into a management role with Pillinger-Air and then Diffusion he changed discipline in 1982 and moved into the Fire Suppression industry as the Managing Director of Surefire Systems Ltd. He brings to Safyre his experience and knowledge of Suppression and Extinguishing systems, which is second to none. He sits on a number of fire industry standards committees where his fire suppression systems knowledge linked to his M&E knowledge is an invaluable asset.

Lynn Cooke - Accounts Manager

Lynn has worked in accounts since leaving school and specialised in reconciliation and incomplete records in the mid 1980s whilst working for a Tunbridge Wells based accountancy practice. This was followed by 12 years with Lamberts, a £30M mail order healthcare business where she had overall responsibility for accounts. Lynn joined Swift as accounts manager in 2001 and assumed responsibility for human resources and the implementation of our health & safety policies in 2003.

Andrew McDonnell - Personnel Manager

Andrew has worked in customer services since 1995, firstly in his native New Zealand, then in the Channel Islands after completing his studies at Canterbury University. Prior to joining Swift Alarms, Andrew worked as a key trainer and call centre manager for the then newly combined AMP/NPI Insurance business and later as call centre manager for a major division of Lehman Brothers. He joined Swift Alarms to head-up the company's enlarged administration department in 2005.

Michael Bourke - National Fire Sales Manager

Mike has more than 27 years experience within the building services industry. For the last 14 years he has specialised within the fire and security systems sector. Having previously worked for some of the industry's best known organisations, Michael has developed an impressive depth of knowledge in the design and implementation of fire alarm and fire suppression systems. From residential apartment buildings and hotels, through to commercial, retail and industrial premises, Michael is able to design a protection system appropriate to the risk.

Paul Rainbow - National Security Sales Manager

Following a highly successful ten year career in the commercial retail sector, Paul joined the electronic security industry in 1993. During this time he has produced effective integrated fire and security solutions for many national companies and local authorities, helping them to maximise their budgets. Immediately prior to joining Swift Paul was sales manager for London based CAI Vision.

Jamie Joyce - Group Fire Operations Manager

Jamie undertook a formal electrical apprenticeship with MJN immediately after leaving school in 1987. Following qualification, he was responsible for overseeing their larger fire alarm installation projects which included networked systems. In 1995 Jamie was approached by Safyre's managing director and joined soon afterwards. He undertook a number of engineering roles for the company, ultimately being promoted to fire projects engineer prior to assuming overall responsibility for the management of major fire systems projects.

Matthew Hitchcock - Group Security Operations Manager

Matthew has a wide range of experience in the domestic, commercial and vehicular security systems sector and has worked for Swift since 2001.
Matthew joined us as an engineer and had gained experience in all of our engineering departments prior to becoming senior installation engineer. Matthew was promoted to his current position in 2007.

Tim Hudson - Fire Engineering Manager

Tim first joined the fire alarm industry in 1980 working for Macanda in a variety of engineering roles. He joined Safyre in 1987 where he gained significant experience in a number of workshop and field based engineering positions, including; workshop manager and general manager. Today Tim heads-up the fire engineering department primarily providing support and direction for his field based colleagues.

Ben Park - Group Service Manager

Following school, Ben joined the National Health Service where he undertook his electrical apprenticeship, qualifying as an electrical technician. After leaving the health service, Ben Joined Kidde Fire Protection where he spent eight years in a variety of engineering positions, including senior engineer and engineering supervisor. He was ultimately promoted to service manager and retained that position until joining Safye as fire service manager in 2007. In 2009 Ben was promoted to Group Service Manager.

Alan Tinsley – Field Operations Manager – Fire

Alan joined BT immediately after leaving school and this was followed by an engineering position at ICL Computers. He joined the fire industry in 1995, training as a fire systems engineer. Alan joined Swift in an engineering capacity in 1997 and has since been promoted to the position of fire operations manager.