25th Anniversary Celebrations in Oxford go with a bang

Last week APEM held the second of five celebrations to mark our 25^th Anniversary in business. This celebration included a drought seminar with guest speakers from the Environment Agency, United Utilities and one of our consortium partners ESI. The seminar was then followed by an evening celebration in the grounds of Begbroke Science Park.

The seminar provided the perfect platform for our guest speakers from the Environment Agency and United Utilities to speak with industry professionals and outline their approach to managing the drought.

APEM acknowledge and reward employees long service

During the last three years APEM’s turnover has grown by 125% and this rapid increase in revenue has been accompanied by a significant growth in our staff levels.

However, it is not just the new team members that are helping to grow our numbers. It’s also APEM’s excellent employee retention rate. APEM’s employee retention rate has allowed us to hold onto some of the best and most talented professionals in our market sectors.

To acknowledge employee loyalty, APEM’s senior management has chosen to reward the long service of our staff by presenting those employees with more than five and ten years’ experience with an engraved fountain pen and a high street voucher for £50 and £100, respectively.

New Fishing Rod for Keith Hendry

 A pleasantly surprised Dr Hendry, receiving his new top-of-the-range fishing rod

Anyone familiar with APEM will be aware that 2012 is our 25^th Anniversary year and to mark this feat we are organising a series of events around the country to celebrate our achievements and to look towards the future.

However, as a thank you to the man who founded the company back in 1987, the company’s staff presented our founder and Managing Director, Dr Keith Hendry with a top-of-the-range Salmon fly fishing rod. The five-piece, fifteen-foot long beauty, will no-doubt help Dr Hendry catch many of those ‘big ones’ that always seem to get away before he can land them!

25th Anniversary Celebrations at Cardiff Castle

Last week APEM held the first of its 25th Anniversary Celebrations at Cardiff Castle. The event was a great success as APEM treated more than forty guests from within the Environmental industry, to an evening of fine wine, dining and excellent company. The event was held in the beautiful surroundings of Cardiff Castle which made an ideal setting on what was a lovely spring evening.

The evening started with reception drinks and once the majority of guests had arrived APEM’s Managing Director, Dr Keith Hendry, held a toast to officially open the proceedings celebrating APEM’s 25 years.

APEM’s Litter Boat Crew Find a Message in a Bottle 

Those of you who follow APEM’s news pages will be aware of our Litter Boat, The Irwell Pride, that we purchased and operate to clean up the River Irwell as it passes through Manchester and beyond to the  River Mersey.

The team manning the boat have successfully removed vast amounts of rubbish from the environment to clean up the local area and earlier this month they found one unusual item amongst all the carelessly discarded waste - a message in a bottle!

UKAS Accreditation Extended to Edinburgh & Cardiff Labs

APEM are very proud to announce that we have been granted UKAS accreditation in line with the requirements of ISO 17025:2005 in our Edinburgh and Cardiff laboratories!

In the Edinburgh laboratory we have been accredited for:

• Identification and Enumeration of Freshwater and Marine Macroinvertebrates to Species Level

(Above) The APEM Lab Scientists in the Edinburgh Laboratory 

A Great day out at Old Trafford

A Great day out for Hannah Wright and family courtesy of APEM Ltd

Left to Right: Hannah Wright (Winner),Man Utd’s Magician, Andy Barclay, Pat Boden, Cherry Wright, Jeff Boden, Gaynor Rea, Ernie Rea, Peter Wright

As part of the annual IFM conference held in Oxford last year, APEM donated a free ticket to our corporate hospitality box at Manchester United for the IFM’s raffle.

Twelfth year of the UCL’s Chironomid Identification Course

2012 cohort pictured with Steve Brooks second left.

This year was the twelth year that the ECRC, Environmental Change Research Centre ran its Chironomid identification course at the University College London. Since the course’s inception about one hundred students from around the world have taken part in this prestigious course. This year students came from universities in Poland, Scotland and England to study on the one week course.

The Most Unusual Rubbish in Manchester's Waterways

REVEALED: THE MOST UNUSUAL RUBBISH IN MANCHESTER’S WATERWAYS

APEM have compiled a top-ten list of the strangest objects found while working to clean-up the city’s rubbish-filled waterways.

We are currently working on cleaning up Manchester’s waterways and are sharing an insight into some of the more bizarre objects that have been found in the city’s rivers.

APEM's Christmas Celebrations

This Christmas APEM celebrated the end of another very successful year. 2011 was the company’s most successful year to date and January 2^nd 2012 is APEM’s 25^th birthday.

 Managing Director, Keith Hendry, motivating the team 

Staff from all six of APEM’s offices converged in Manchester for a full day of team building exercises and Christmas celebration.

Peter Dennis Celebrates 10 Years at APEM

APEM’s Field Manager, Peter Dennis, recently celebrated his 10^th year at APEM. Peter joined the company when it was still run from a single office at the Manchester Science Park. Having started as a Field Scientist, Peter was promoted to Senior Field Scientist, and subsequently APEM’s, Field Manager. As the Field Manager he is the centre pin for all things ‘field based’ leading a team of 20 professional field scientists and coordinating multiple projects across the UK.  It is fair to say that since joining APEM, Pete has seen the company grow quite considerably from around 6 scientists to the 118 that are present today.

APEM Adds Fourth Aircraft To The Fleet

Since the Chester airfield opening APEM has expanded its fleet with a fourth aircraft.

Scientists at the Chester airfield will use the aircraft to gather data for environmental surveys. These provide greater insights into the land or water below than more conventional methods could yield. 

G-GIGA, the latest Vulcanair P68C, is fitted with an RCD 30 camera, and is used to gather visual data about specific environments while in the air.