Building a bridge to the future at Harland & Wolff

Clarissa Caseytalks to Robert Cooper, who has led the revamped shipyard back into profit

They dominate the Belfast cityscape - Goliath, erected in 1969, and Samson, its twin, joining it in 1974. The two huge gantry cranes of Harland & Wolff are now protected structures. To many locals the cranes, like the nearby Titanic Quarter, are relics of the city's bygone glory days and the once busy shipyard's fondness for mythical strongmen.

Harland & Wolff's steep decline - it once employed 30,000 people - has parallels with Northern Ireland's descent into conflict. By 1989 it was on its knees, with the British government demanding its sale and even more redundancies.

East Belfast man Robert Cooper began work in the shipyards in the 1970s as a trainee cost and management accountant when the company still occupied a vast 300 acres and employed close to 10,000 people. His father worked there as a fitter and was later to be among the many to take early retirement.

"It had the culture of a government-owned company. We didn't make profits," says Cooper now.

"It's very difficult to say if it could have. The Japanese were the big competition in the market and they were government supported. Shipbuilding was seen as a strategic industry," he says.

Cooper moved up through the company in various positions while the shipbuilding orders got fewer and workers were shed. He was a divisional accountant when the company was sold to the Norwegian shipping giant Fred Olsen in 1989. After a long period of despondency the company became energised again.

"In the run-up to the sale a lot of people took early retirement but obviously there were compulsory redundancies. The new company wanted as far as possible to end up with the right people. I could see the impact on the community. There were lots of actions to minimise that - retraining of people for example - but it was a very difficult time. There was a lot of optimism once we came through it."

By the late 1990s, however, the restructuring after privatisation proved to be a false dawn. The company became embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute over the manufacture of two drill ships for the oil industry.

"We got through that, effectively, by the skin of our teeth," says Cooper. The case ended up in arbitration and, by 2000, the company was nearly broke financially.

Two new orders for vessels for the British Ministry of Defence kept the yards busy until 2003 but by then the market had changed dramatically. Gone were the big shipbuilding orders - most were built on a project basis - and the Koreans had now joined the Japanese in providing highly competitive shipbuilding services.

When Cooper took the helm in January 2003 he admits it was something of a poisoned chalice. The company had hit rock bottom. Obituaries were widespread. "It was fairly depressing at that stage. It was difficult to keep people motivated and involved. There was a lot of scepticism that this wasn't going to work - not only internally but externally from some of the politicians and the press to say the least."

Cooper says that taking the top job was difficult for him. He's not a natural front man, he claims.

He describes himself as an accountant turned businessman. He says he has often been accused of being a philistine in not understanding the romanticism of the sea but is unapologetic about his pragmatism. "I don't care what I build. It could be a Lego set out there for all I care if it makes money," he says.

The first 18 months of his tenure were a struggle. "It was tough getting people to take us seriously. We were fighting in every market, fighting to take every job."

The company sold two-thirds of its land and downsized to a core team of 120 people and began investigating new markets. It still had two huge gantry cranes capable of lifting 800 tonnes of steel - a facility that would be almost prohibitively expensive to build in the last few years.

"The first 18 months were about getting restructured. It was mid-2004 when we began taking off, which surprised everyone. We were looking at wind farms, which came out of left field. Because of our facilities we could build any big steel structures, not just ships. You get an idea and take it a step forward. After 10 ideas, you might get one that might work.

"We've developed the kind of culture now which allows us to have a look at something and at the competitive advantage."

Harland & Wolff is now a project-based organisation, operating across three main divisions. It's still involved in ship work, although it's now more broadly defined as "marine" which, according to Cooper, covers anything that floats on water.

For example, the four Irish Ferries vessels are currently getting their annual maintenance check-up in the yards. A new oil rig module recently sailed from the dock to the North Sea. The company has also built a prototype wave energy generator - currently being tested in Galway Bay - in partnership with a local technology firm at the nearby Queen's Island Science Park.

"It's been relatively successful and we're now talking about building a full-size model," says Cooper.

The company's manufacturing division built the new James Joyce bridge in Dublin and others throughout the world. The engineering division provides designers and developers on contract to other shipbuilding companies in the US and Far East.

Since mid-2004 average employment, including temporary workers, has been in the region of 400 people. Relationships have developed with other small companies in Northern Ireland, which handle subcontracting work and often operate on site.

"The model is quite clear. We can't afford to have a big core employment unless we can sustain it," says Cooper.

He believes the company's recent profitable stretch - the first in many years - is sustainable. "It took a lot of work from a lot of people to stop us going under. It's hard to look back on that. It's not something we focus on. The mistakes that were made - that would be too long a conversation. There were things that were done wrong, things that should have been done better. It's not anyone's fault per se. It was just a whole series of circumstances.

"The thing about change is that you don't realise you're going through it when it's happening. I've certainly changed. Maybe it's getting older but you realise that everything isn't black and white - quite clearly not. I'm not even sure if there's a right or wrong.

"Most of the people here four years ago didn't think they'd still be here today. And here they are."

Factfile

Name:Robert Cooper

Age:54

Position:Chief executive, Harland & Wolff

Family:Wife Rhonda, two step-children

Why he is in the news:He has led the slimmed-down and diversified group back into profit

Hobbies:Music. His favourite gadget is a new 30 gigabyte video iPod containing his 400-strong album collection - it includes the Arctic Monkeys, although he admits he's not that keen on the group