MDS Longest Serving Employees

In honour of Paul McEnaney and Martin Edwards—two of MDS’ longest serving team members celebrating recent milestones with the company, we are sharing their stories which accounts how—even from the early days—they knew that MDS was on a journey that would see the company grow, develop and continually innovate.

Paul McEnaney is a Fitter and longest serving team member with MDS, who started back in 1995 with company founders Liam and Una Murray, who had a vision to design and develop engineering solutions to industry.

Here is Paul’s story:

‘My journey as a Fitter with MDS had been very interesting. Over the years we did numerous types of work, but we really took off when Liam started up the trommels and developed the M515.

I’ve enjoyed the variety of work along with changes and challenges along the way—I don’t like doing the same thing every day. When we were doing automation and design you never made the same machine twice. I really enjoyed that – you could spend six months on one machine and that was it. The next machine would be different.

I have learned a lot during my time with MDS, working on different machines—even seeing failures was an opportunity to learn, because as a team we figured out how to overcome those failures. One of my favorite things about working with MDS is the fact that you have to be constantly thinking of what you are doing—going from one machine to another and making improvements where needed.

I am proud that my career has grown alongside the growth of MDS—the company has gone from strength to strength and grown massively from where we started in a small shed 5m x 15m—look at us now with two big factories!”

Martin Edwards has the proud title of being the first Welder/Fabricator with MDS and has found his 21-year career with the company so rewarding that his son is now following in his footsteps.

Here is Martin’s story:

“I am proud of the fact that I was the first person in the door as a welder with MDS, particularly as I have got to see MDS get stronger and stronger, bigger and bigger over the years. Not only that, but I experienced the company going from busier-to-busier times, but also hard times to even busier times again.

I have always had my head in the shoe as they say. I have been involved in a lot of the developments over the years, as well as my own personal development on the job, which is way beyond where I expected to be when I first started. And I enjoy the fact that I can continue to develop my career further with MDS.

Every job is a challenge. I have never been a quitter in everything that I do. I was involved in the design and build of the first ever MDS machine—the M515, right from the beginning, and I have seen it develop over the years. Now, I’m responsible for the M515 Chassis, the M412, M13, the M518R at times, as well as the M820. When I was a younger man, I never would have thought that I would be building something this big. I have come a long way since, and funny enough, the machines have come a long way since too.

I’m proud of what I produce—I am a perfectionist I have been for years. I try to help new team members by helping them and leading the way. When I look at the pictures of the machines on the walls here in the factory it gives me a great sense of achievement.

I feel a great accomplishment when I see the finished product, and—when that product is sold and leaves the factory—and steps on the toes of the big companies around the world, I get great satisfaction knowing what I have made and how well the machines are performing all around the world —I can sit back and say ‘I built that’.

And even another achievement for Martin is working alongside his son and teaching him the MDS Way. Mark describes his role with MDS over the last 3 years with his dad and works on fabrication, Quality & finetuning product.

Mark-and-Martin-Edwards

‘What makes me proud is being able to set a standard of product. I love seeing the finished product and one of my biggest achievements was working alongside his dad on the M820. This was challenging physically and mentally. But this really was my absolute proudest moment to date,. When I see the videos of the machines on YouTube, I’m delighted to see our work and the machines we have built as a team around the world.’

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