WISHNI - Meet the team
Please see below for a list of the WISHNI team and a description of their roles.
- Chair - Jim King
- Deputy Chair - Jennifer Stephens
- Secretary - Rachel Hunter
- Coordinator - Justine McIntyre
- Financial Controller - Raymond Martin
- IT Specialist - Pete Gibson
Chair - Jim King
Jim has recently retired from HSENI where he was a Principal Inspector for 28 years. A gas engineer by background, (he also spent 10 years in the gas industry), he led the HSENI's chemical safety team for many years. He led the investigations into the deaths of the Spence family and the Castlerock carbon monoxide poisonings and the public safety campaigns which followed these tragedies.
Before retiring he started a campaign to reduce fatalities and other injuries in the waste industry. This coincided with a request from the waste industry for a forum to tackle the problems in waste. He is a founder member of WISHNI and on retirement of the first Chairman, Professor Alan Woodside, Jim took over as Chair.
When not representing WISHNI, he currently trains companies and individuals in health and safety or walks his collie dog in the Mourne Mountains.
Deputy Chair - Jennifer Stephens
Jennifer works for the Waste Management Service, in Belfast City Council and oversees waste policy, research and compliance. This role includes maintaining ISO standards in Health and Safety (ISO 45001), Environment (ISO 14001) and Quality (ISO 9001). Jennifer has over 20 years’ experience of various job roles within Belfast City Council. Previous to this, she worked for NI Water, a local recycling company and also for a number of environmental charities, both in a paid capacity and in a voluntary role.
Jennifer has a background in Environmental Science and is particularly interested in the concept of waste as a valuable resource and in supporting the Circular Economy. She has a passion for reuse, repair and upcycling of materials and in giving forgotten, pre-loved or discarded items a new lease of life.
Belfast City Council became a member of WISHNI in its early days and Jennifer quickly became a regular participant at meetings, training and events. The Council’s Waste Management Service has been recognised as a WISH Ambassador for several years running, in acknowledgement of its commitment to Health and Safety within the workplace.
Jennifer would encourage others working in waste in Northern Ireland to consider joining WISHNI or to simply join a meeting or two to find out more. She explains “The waste sector has a rate of fatal injury around 18 times the average rate across all industries*. The importance of Health and Safety within waste operations really cannot be underestimated. Whilst carrying out day-to-day waste activities, the protection of staff and everyone involved in such operations should remain our number one priority. The WISHNI forum has been successful at bringing together a range of workers from right across the waste industry, with a wealth of knowledge, skills, expertise and experience. Through the combined efforts of our members, challenges faced by the waste sector can be addressed and solutions developed and explored to help drive down the number accidents and incidents across this industry”.
* HSE RIDDOR annual average 2015 – 2020.
Secretary - Rachel Hunter
Rachel became involved with the WISHNI forum while studying BSc Environmental Health at Ulster University and working within Recon Waste Management. After graduating in the summer of 2019, she now works as Health, Safety & Environmental Officer for Energia Group which focuses and invests heavily in renewables, flexible generation and customer solutions.
Her passion centralises around continuously improving, learning and gaining more insight into all things health and safety. Being a part of WISHNI enables her to be part of the collaborative approach in continuing the extensive progression of health and safety standards beyond the legal requirements in the waste industry in NI as well as meeting and learning from so many experienced and knowledgeable individuals and organisations.
Coordinator - Justine McIntyre
Prior to joining HSENI Justine worked as a health and safety and environmental officer across the private waste, recycling and mineral products industry for 7 years. This involved landfill, material recovery facilities, hazardous waste transfer and the quarrying sector. She is now a health and safety inspector within the waste and extractive industries group for HSENI ensuring health and safety standards are met across the industry and providing advice and assistance where required.
Justine has been attending WISHNI since 2017 and has previously submitted successful applications for WISHNI Ambassador Awards. Justine now takes on the role of WISHNI Coordinator to drive forward the key ethos of the Group and organise and promote industry events to improve health and safety standards.
Financial Controller - Raymond Martin
Raymond is the Managing Director of GreenBridge Innovations (GBI) and The British Toilet Association Ltd (BTA).
Greenbridge is a private consultancy organisation that works to support UK companies wishing to trade in Ireland. Offering personalised one-2-one contacts & support as well as local presentations and conferences.
The BTA is the industry voice and representative body working with suppliers and providers of publicly accessible toilets across the UK and Ireland. They carry out independent surveys and consultancies on buildings, provisions, services and offer advice and guidance on opportunities for continual & future improvement.
IT Specialist - Pete Gibson
Pete is the major accounts manager for Atlas World, a long-established Fire and Security and Energy company within Northern Ireland.
He has over 15 years in the Fire industry and has worked for multi-nationals as well as local companies across the UK & Ireland.
Following conversations with WISHNI members and following many devastating fires within the sector Pete was asked if he would be interested in joining the group in order to assist and develop knowledge on fire alarms & fire suppression systems for the group members.
On joining, Pete offered to set up and run the group’s LinkedIn page as it did not have a presence at that time.
Recently he has been enabling the group’s online meetings through Covid-19 and will develop a regular webinar function to further skills and knowledge base throughout the group’s members.