Coyle started his manufacturing career back in the late 1980s with a Scottish subcontract manufacturer. Serving a machining apprenticeship and rising up the ranks to fill machine shop manager and production manager positions, Coyle finished his time at the subcontractor as the plant manager. His experience also includes spells with a cutting-tool manufacturer, serving the north of England and Scottish territories as a technical sales engineer.
Commenting upon taking the opportunity to join Dugard, Coyle says: “The Dugard brand is respected for both its quality and service, so the reputation of Dugard was certainly appealing. Additionally, in my previous role, I got to know Colin Thomson and Mark Anson, who are now both enjoying life at Dugard. Their experiences made me realise it was a company I wanted to work for.”
Coyle will be tasked with exploiting new sales opportunities and introducing the raft of Dugard brands that are now available to manufacturers in Scotland and the northeast of England.
Commenting upon the appointment, managing director Eric Dugard says: “Employing engineers with the enthusiasm, experience and knowledge of the marketplace in the north is a real asset. For a number of years, we have maintained market share in Scotland, but our efforts have been built around servicing existing customers; essentially good ‘housekeeping’. However, in the past 18 months we’ve added to our stable the Hanwha brand of sliding-head turning centres and automation solutions, the high-end range of Kitamura machine tools and, at the turn of 2020, the Ibarmia brand.
“We already have an expansive range of machine-tool solutions for industry, but these latest additions are really giving us the impetus to increase our footprint in all regions of the UK,” adds Dugard. “In the case of Gerald and his northeast England and Scotland area, we recognise the strength of the offshore, power generation and heavy-engineering sectors; the Ibarmia Spanish-built travelling column machining centres, up to 12 m in capacity, are ideal here.”