Stuart Brooks (left) and Stuart Cooke (right) with Ceratizit UK & Ireland technical manager Shaun Thornton

Sheffield-based Ceratizit UK & Ireland has expanded its applications support team with the appointment of two additional engineers, Stuart Cooke and Stuart Brooks, who will provide support across the Midlands and North west of England.

The applications support team works alongside Ceratizit’s technical sales engineers to provide customers with an extra layer of reassurance with day-to-day machining, technical support and project development activities. With more time available to them they can work closely with key accounts while also help to develop business within other customers.

Shaun Thornton, Ceratizit UK and Ireland technical manager, said: “The applications team is central to our ongoing strategy of developing our customer support activities, and these two appointments will be followed by further additions during the year.”

The arrival of the two Stuarts takes the number of applications engineers to 10 meaning that the majority of the UK is now fully supported by Ceratizit UK & Ireland’s technical sales and applications teams, ensuring help and advice on all cutting tool and workholding requirements is on-hand. As with existing team members these new recruits are apprentice-trained, with years of metal-cutting experience behind them.

Mr Cooke has over 27 years’ experience across general sub-contract engineering and toolmaking, covering all aspects of machining. Explaining his decision to join Ceratizit UK & Ireland he said: “I have known Ceratizit for many years as a customer, and their professionalism and customer support is well respected, so when the opportunity to apply for the position as an applications engineer, I jumped at the chance as it gives me the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge that I have to a wider audience.”

Similarly, Mr Brooks brings with him many years of experience, having started in engineering straight from school operating CNC machines. He subsequently applied himself to learning and progressed to setting and programming and becoming a team leader of a CNC turning section, prior to moving into a production engineering role, where he took projects from concept through to production.

“I have applied for various roles at Ceratizit over the years as through my experience of the company and its products I knew they could offer me the next step in my career. I am looking forward to working with customers to develop applications and to apply my skills to specific projects.”