The contracts nobody else wanted
At twenty years old I went to work every day in a military helicopter.
3 min read
This was Northern Ireland. The British Army needed someone to maintain equipment at remote locations along the border, and the only way in was by helicopter. Nobody wanted it.
I was twenty. I had a small business. I needed the work. And if I am being honest about it, I thought it sounded exciting. So I took it.
Every morning, a military helicopter. Every day, locations most people could not get to. Then back again in the evening. I did not think of it as difficult at the time. I just thought of it as a contract nobody else was willing to do, which meant it was mine.
Around the same time, my dad had a contract maintaining equipment for the British government at Hillsborough Castle. When the Prime Minister visited Northern Ireland, when royalty came to stay, that is where they went. Somebody had to make sure everything worked when they arrived. That somebody was us.
One Friday a call came in. The TV was not working, and Margaret Thatcher was arriving for the weekend. My friends were already making plans. I got in the car.
It was not dramatic. It was just the job. The client needed something done, and the fact that it was inconvenient for me was completely irrelevant. That is what you signed up for.
That is where the culture at OKTO was formed. Not written on a wall anywhere, just a simple understanding that when it matters, you show up. We have had teams working until 2am to hit a deadline. We have flown to Germany to solve a problem nobody else could fix. We have built hotel rooms inside our own facility to test systems before they reach site. None of that feels exceptional. It is just what the job requires.
The work nobody else wants is the work that teaches you the most. It is also the work where you have no competition. Hospital estates nobody could digitise. Motorised doors a German manufacturer could not integrate. Control systems that did not exist until we made them.
It all started in a helicopter over the Irish border. 34 years later, we are still taking the contracts nobody else wants.
“Customers remember who showed up when it was inconvenient.”
34 years of taking the work nobody else wanted
See how OKTO became the accountable partner for projects that cannot afford to go wrong.
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