Martin Dooley

Born in 1957 in Liverpool, I went to St Edwards college until 18. My four main passions are music, art, sailing and chemistry. I got a chemistry set for Christmas when I was 12 and became obsessed with chemistry which had a massive influence on my working life. Music sailing and art are still a big part of my life playing in bands since I was 14 and painting ultimately leading me to win a Lancashire Landscape artist award in 2023. I did an applied chemistry degree at Sheffield Poly which then took me into my first job as research scientist at E.R Squibb Pharmaceuticals as part of the formulation study group. I then moved into quality control where I spent 3 years. Following this I was approached to set up a veterinary medicines manufacturing facility at Leyland.

This start led me to gain experience in operations, quality and particularly management. I was eventually operations director. The company was taken over by Grampian pharmaceuticals in 1992. This was a company that had several sites, sterile, vaccines and in feed medicine manufacture. I was appointed head of quality for the group. It was during my time here I became a qualified person under the medicines act. I stayed for 6 years until I was then approached by an agro-hemical company to be Operations Director (Sorex now BASF). I made significant improvements to the business including gaining an £8m/year contract with Syngenta. One specific improvement was the introduction of new patented process which is in my name.

In 2003, I decided to become a business improvement consultant as well as contract QP. The consultancy was through the Manufacturing Advisory Service . I supported and advised over 250 companies during my time which included strategic planning, introducing Lean manufacturing, and quality management systems in engineering, food and a wide range of other sectors. In 2012 funding for MAS was stopped. I then focused on my QP clients. I have worked with both human and veterinary companies to date. In 2012 I also bought a boat building business, making traditional sailing boats. This continued until this year, I have now handed the management of the boat business to Drascombe a similar company. In 2019 the BHMA asked me to help create a standard similar to GMP. My very broad experience helped enormously and ultimately has led to the HerbMark.