NBI CEO Peter Hendrick sat down with Philip Loughran in our meet the team blog series.
Meet the Team Delivering Your National Broadband Plan
Last month, I had the great pleasure to launch our new ‘Meet the Team’ series, hoping to provide some insight into the talented team delivering Ireland’s National Broadband Plan and give a glimpse behind the scenes into the roles people are taking on to rollout this momentous infrastructure project spanning 96% of the country’s landmass.
I’ve been thrilled with the reception to our first blog post, which featured the fantastic Claire Donnelly from our deployment team. Like so many people in our growing team, Claire has had a colourful career spanning large-scale projects globally.
This week, I sat down with Philip Loughran, one of our Network Delivery Managers working within our build team. Bringing his extensive experience as a civil engineer working for numerous utility projects across Ireland and the UK, Philip is a great asset to our team. Here’s why:
Tell us about your background leading up to joining NBI: Throughout my career I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have worked on some of the largest civil engineering projects both here in Ireland and the UK. I start my career with Lagan construction where I worked on three large motorway projects and a 68 turbine windfarm in the highlands of Scotland. Recently, I was build manager on the 110km of intermediate gas pipeline for the Gas to the West project in Northern Ireland, and before that, working within the telecoms sector supporting commercial fibre-to-the-home rollouts here in Ireland.
What does your job role at NBI entail? I joined NBI in May this year and am working in a growing team. There are 17 of us currently working specifically on managing the network build across the country. We’re working closely with NBI’s contractors to deliver an efficient build that meets the deployment plan.
What does a typical day look like? On any given day I’d be setting up and managing the construction of deployment area for a fast and efficient build. To deliver the NBP for 544,000 premises across the country, we’ve planned 227 deployment areas which helps us to make progress across the whole country and work in logical, efficient manner. My role also involves ensuring contractors have the required processes and procedures in place to meet project requirements, reviewing and managing contractor programme and progress on a weekly basis to make sure we’re always achieving ambitious targets. I also help manage the handover of each deployment area once the build is complete, which is our opportunity to see real tangible progress in the rollout and something that gives us all a great deal of pride.
What do you like best about working for NBI? I really enjoy working with the people in NBI. Everyone has such vast experience and brings unique qualities to the project which helps create an environment where everyone is learning from each other. Plus, I get to work on a project that is going to radically change rural Ireland for the better.
How has working from home impacted your day to day job? Working from home has been a real benefit to be honest. The nature of this project lends itself to working remotely and I feel there is greater efficiencies to be had from working at home. NBI has implemented some great initiatives to support remote working and make everyone feel part of the team, even if they’ve been recruited since the pandemic disrupted usual office-based roles.
What are you most looking forward to in the rollout of the NBP? I’m really looking forward to seeing how rural Ireland will change after getting connected to high-speed fibre broadband. I think it’s exciting to see how rural communities will advance after realising the benefits that connectivity will bring.
How would you describe the culture at NBI? Everyone working for NBI has an opportunity to change rural Ireland for the better. I believe all NBI employees have bought into this philosophy and are committed to making it happen – this comes across as a strong ambition for everyone in the company.
At NBI we have a company value which is ‘Stand for integrity’ and for me, this closely matches the values I hold dear as I believe we can make a difference to the communities that we are connecting.
Tell us something we wouldn’t know about you: I had the pleasure of representing the Armagh Senior football team for several years, winning one All-Ireland, four Ulster Championships, a National League and two Railway cups.
