Bob Clarke

Bob joined FCP in 2002 to lead the development of FCP's infrastructure engineering practice and has devoted over forty years of his working life to the railways in both the public and private sectors. Starting as an engineering trainee in 1967 Bob quickly won acclaim as an innovative and forward thinking engineer always prepared to challenge traditional thinking and as a result subsequently won a university sponsorship. Bob's degree qualification enabled him to pursue a varied career as an engineering manager.

He has managed bridge construction projects from design to construction, worked on several electrification schemes and in the 1980s held key hands-on posts as a permanent way engineer. Then followed a period in which he led and directed first of all the civil engineering activities associated with high speed passenger services on the East Coast Main Line and then infrastructure activities as a whole, being one of the first multi-functional technical directors on Britain's railways. For a brief spell during this period Bob worked with John Nelson in developing the first performance planning system to be used in Britain, a system that today still forms the basis for performance management between train companies and infrastructure providers.

On privatisation Bob was initially appointed Railtrack's Zone Director for the East Coast Main Line.This was followed by appointment to Director, Resource Engineer. He was quickly snapped up by the private sector where he was initially Chairman and Managing Director of Jarvis Rail moving on in 1999 to be the company's main Board director responsible for new business development at home and abroad. He worked amongst other things on a ‘Tubelines’ bid team which successfully acquired part of the London Underground.

With FCP Bob has led a multi-functional technical team of infrastructure engineers on several projects in the UK, the Far East, South America and South Africa. Working for the Department for Transport Bob helped get the massive West Coast modernisation project under financial control, for which FCP's “constructive challenge” team won praise in a recent National Audit Office Report.