Celebrating 2024’s Engineer of the Year
With the Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) keen to highlight the skills and expertise of the incredibly talented people working in the sector, it’s time to shine the spotlight on this year’s winner of the BCIA Engineer of the Year award, Luke Clarehugh.
Boasting an incredible work ethic and drive to help support and train new engineers and anyone else keen to learn and improve, Luke Clarehugh excels in the use of technology and products to improve cost, delivery times and efficiency. Much to the delight of his clients!
While the competition for this year’s Engineer of the Year award was incredibly fierce (as it is every year), Luke was a thoroughly deserving winner, having dedicated much of his career to helping and assisting others while identifying innovative new ways of implementing technology.
Nominated for the award by Stuart Aldred, Northern Engineering Manager at Schneider Electric, Luke played a vital role in all projects across Yorkshire and the North East, utilising his exceptional expertise and knowledge as a senior commissioning engineer. This was all while finishing his degree!
Keen to highlight the importance of technology, Luke redesigned the solution Schneider Electric had for York Hospital’s Emergency Department, ultimately cutting wiring and panel costs by up to 40%. As a result, the hospital was able to allocate these savings to other needed areas of expenditure.
Additionally, he utilised Cloud technology to interface bed iPads and enable efficient temperature and lighting control in rooms throughout the hospital. A solution Schneider Electric is now deploying on other healthcare sites across the UK.
Indeed, with vast experience in the use of technology in engineering, Luke has frequently redesigned solutions originally proposed to bring greater efficiency and accelerate project delivery times to reduce down time and disruption for clients.
Having himself gained vital knowledge and expertise from experienced colleagues and industry professionals, Luke has always strived to improve not only himself but also his impact on the team. As such, he’s created his own training programme for new engineers and held regular training workshops to help further the support provided to both experienced and novice engineers.
Commending Luke on his commitment to his duties and the industry as a whole, Stuart Aldred said: “Luke has had a long history in bringing through exceptional apprentices in the Leeds team. He works hard to educate and train them to a very high standard and has stepped that up by creating training frameworks and workshops. He also shows fantastic behaviour on site and builds great relationships with customers, who want to work with Luke and Schneider as repeat customers.”
Luke was absolutely thrilled to receive the award and was keen to thank those who’d helped him along the way. He said: “It is an absolute honour to achieve this accolade and thank you so much to Schneider Electric for nominating me.
“The people I work with are absolutely incredible and they have undoubtedly played a huge role in not only who I am today but also me receiving this award. So, a massive thank you to them, too.”
BCIA President Stacey Lucas, who was also part of the judging panel, praised Luke’s incredible commitment to helping others. She said: “Luke was an incredibly deserving winner of the Engineer of the Year award. He’s constantly doing everything he can to further the industry and bring out the very best in everyone he trains and educates.
“As anyone that attended the awards event can attest, Luke was a very popular winner. That just highlights the superb work he’s been doing in the sector and will no doubt continue to do.”
With the BCIA awards evening bringing together industry professionals to celebrate innovation and dedication to the built environment, awards like the Engineer of the Year are an ideal opportunity to celebrate the incredible talent throughout the building controls sector.