After spending his working life in engineering, Heller Machine Tools’ area sales manager Chris Smith retired from the company on the last day of MACH 2018.

In the mid-1960s, he entered a five-year technical apprenticeship at British Motor Corporation’s Austin plant in Longbridge. He was later a project engineer with Land Rover and then Rover, before starting in machine tool sales at Brighton-based Kearney Trecker Marwin (KTM) in 1984.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mr Smith started selling ‘agency lines’ of machine tools for a firm in the Midlands before starting his own company — AMS Technology.

He joined Heller Machine Tools as area sales manager for the South West and South Wales in June 1994.

At the time of his retirement, his sales remit had extended to Ireland and the Midlands.