Martin Smith
My call to business
1971 Arriving in Melbourne, Australia aboard the Britannis, compete with lovely wife, Judy, 1year old Tara, a mechanical engineering degree, 6 years' experience with Vauxhall and ERA and the burning passion for cars that courses through the lives of petrol heads, I was looking forward to the unknown. It was thrilling!
Returning to the UK 5 years later for a "working holiday" with the addition of 5 years as a development engineer with Ford Australia, 2 ½ year old Leanne, and the beginning of the new nature that our Lord Jesus Christ alone can give, I thought that I needed to do "something religious".
So I sent off more than 40 applications for teaching posts for Religious Education. After 3 months and not a single reply, I began to realize that perhaps my service for the Lord Jesus might lie elsewhere! An advert in the Telegraph jobs page seemed to stand out in bold letters - "Advanced Vehicle Manager". When I rang the number, the job was in Leyland. My Epsom home and education and my "south of Watford" world view prevented the penny dropping that Leyland is a town in Lancashire where the Leyland Vehicles saga began. In October 1976, I became part of it.
My first major assignment was to attend a Flywheel Technology Symposium in San Francisco (well somebody had to do it!) where I believe that our Creator God gave me a vision of a double decker bus with a safe energy storage flywheel so that brakes needn't be used to waste the bus energy, it could be stored in the flywheel and then re-used to accelerate the bus from the bus stop.
Through the Lord's miraculous provision, Leyland Vehicles successfully ran a bus in 1985 with such a system - just before de-regulation of the bus industry led to the demise of Leyland Bus! Our attempts to continue development of the system almost died when Leyland Trucks closed. Torotrak (Development) Ltd was formed by British Technology Group to develop the novel gearbox needed for this flywheel system.
Having been a full time consultant to Torotrak for 12 years, I left their focus on car gearboxes to pursue the vision of a bus powertrain that would halve fuel consumption, in line with the original vision that I believe God gave me.
Along the way, I have been challenged about integrity, excellence, servant leadership and a whole host of leadership issues. When I was managing 120 people in a Vehicle Testing department, the pornographic calendars on the walls were a specific challenge. I know that I'm not alone in battling with keeping the attractions of the female form within a godly perspective, but when the Lord Jesus gave me a vision of me showing Him round the facilities that I managed, I froze when we came to the door of the main office. "Could You look the other way, Lord please?" and similar questions paled into a stark thought "THEY'VE GOT TO GO"! But what about free will? I'll have to sort my own thinking out! The unions will object! Isn't this OTT? What about our women employees? Eventually, my eye fell on some Company rules indicating that our behaviour should not cause offence to any other employee. And yes, I was offended by the calendars. So I wrote a note to each of the guys saying that the calendars offended me, so would they please remove them, or at least place them so that they were not on public view.
After the initial furor, the only one who refused was the union rep. After Christmas that year, it was reported to me that the guys in the drawing office were jealous of our vehicle test office, because they couldn't say to the component suppliers that they were not allowed such calendars. The pressure on the vehicle test engineers was greatly reduced. Praise God for His intervention. And I survived what I thought might be career suicide!
I am still pursuing what I'm convinced is my call to business. A company has been formed to continue to work towards a commercial powertrain (hopefully made and exploited in the UK) that is a world leader, providing greater than 50% fuel consumption savings, and being a showcase for UK technology during the Olympic Games in 2012. The team of developers is miraculously in place, the bus and truck market is gasping for a system that is commercially viable rather than the cumbersome diesel/electric offerings that will always have to be subsidised.
The Lord Jesus is not only Son of God, Saviour, Creator and Sustainer, He is also, through the Holy Spirit, the best management Consultant, business strategist and Friend - Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Why has this taken over 30 years? Good question. I've concluded that the Lord has ineffable leisure - He has eternity to work out His purposes - we are the ones with the short term goal-setting disease that can rob us of our joy if we let it. We easily miss our leisure time seated with the Lord Jesus in heavenly places, because we are in such a rush to get things going. Our Lord never hurries, rushes or rants - His life can be seen in us if we will let Him have His unruffled way in us.
Easy to say? Yes, but now at 62 years old, when I thought I would be panicking and asking the Lord "Do You know how old I am?"(!!!), instead, I am learning (eventually) to come to Jesus, to let Him give me rest - to take His yoke on me, and to keep reminding my "dummy box" the it is God Almighty who is in control.
As the financial institutions spiral into melt down, it's good to remember that there's no recession in heaven!! That's where our treasure IS!! Glory to God!