Terry Skee, director of Cleaner Air Solutions Ltd

TERRY Skee followed generations of his family into the Army. But after a long and sometimes harrowing military career, he launched himself into business and is now director of a fast-growing North East solar panel firm. He spoke to Stephen Cape.

SOME habits never die. Former Army staff sergeant and now self-made businessman Terry Skee still polishes his shoes, and puts a crisp crease in his shirts. He points proudly at his handiwork.
The discipline of 17 years of regimented Army life has left the 53-year-old commercial director of Durham-based Cleaner Air Solutions Ltd well-prepared to deal with the challenges of a weak economy .
He has a clear philosophy: “I have always had a determination to succeed and I have set out goals for myself throughout my life which I have achieved.”
The company has bucked the trend, seeing its turnover rocket in the last three years as it taps into the growing solar panel market.
But the world of commerce is a long way from Skee’s early life. He was perfect Army stock from a long line of military men.
“We traced it back 200 years. My father was in the Army, my grandfather and my great-grandad. It seemed natural to follow them,” he says.

From the age of 12, the Newcastle- born lad wanted to sign up. He was one of four brothers and sisters and when he successfully completed his O-levels and CSEs at Heaton Grammar School there were no second thoughts. He was off to the recruitment office.
“My parents seemed OK about it and one of my brothers, Billy, also joined up. I was proud of myself. This was the life I wanted.”
The Army decided that Skee’s future lay in the Royal Signals. In the 1970s the technology was changing fast from old valve transmitters and receivers to the very latest equipment.
“The training lasted about a year and I had to learn Morse Code. I managed to get up to 38 words per minute. It’s not really used that much now. But it was a challenge.”
He smiles sometimes as he remembers the disciplined Army days and his first posting to trouble-torn Northern Ireland.
He was just 18 when he became part of 573 Rear Link Detachment, sending and receiving vital signals for front line troops.
“I loved the life. No two days were the same, one day you could be out and about, another you could be learning something new.”
Listening to secret IRA transmissions was an important part of the job and passing on intelligence.
But when friends or colleagues were killed by a terrorist bullet or bomb, it leaves a vivid memory.
He says: “It just rips the guts out of you when you lose people you know, but you have to live with it and move on, in fact it made me more determined to succeed. I wanted to be the best in signals.”
It was in the late 70s when Skee met his first wife in Northern Ireland. She was a Protestant and came from a military background.
The young Geordie squaddie was readily accepted into the household because of the Army connection: “I had friends on both sides and I was very interested in the politics of Northern Ireland. I felt very privileged to have been there,” he says.
But life for the young soldier was about to change forever. Even today he finds the subject difficult to talk about. He prefers to call it an accident, possibly because it is a memory he would rather forget.
Skee was on foot patrol with colleagues when a device exploded nearby: “The concussion damaged the hearing in my right ear. I had lots of tests, back and forth to hospital. I could have had a cochlear implant but they were not sure if it would ever work,” he explains.
Eventually he decided to live with the injury, but it ruled out any prospect of returning to signals, listening to weak transmissions through the radio static.
“I had two choices, a medical discharge or retraining” he says. “So I decided to stay in the Army.”
Skee started to learn about the world of technical stores, everything from ammunition to fuel clothing and rations. “It was the lowest of the low,” he complains, but what Skee did not realise then was that his new job manning the stores would prepare him for a successful career in civvy street.
He returned to Northern Ireland in his new role but soon was posted to Germany during the Cold War where East German border guards and British troops played out a staring game over the Berlin Wall.
“I did miss the action, but I was determined to make a success of the new job. When I went to Berlin it was surreal, the city was vast but it was claustrophobic at the same time.
By now Skee had two young children, Kelvin and Samantha, and he had been promoted to corporal.
On the walls of Skee’s office are pictures of his military past. The soldiers he served with and memories of the places he was posted to, the Netherlands and Nato where as technical store man he learned about purchasing and procurement.
He had another goal: “I wanted to become a sergeant in not more than 12 years from joining the Army and I did it.”
It was now the 1980s and Skee was alternating between training courses and work in the store room. Although he had originally signed on for nine years, this had been extended.
He found himself in the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic where British troops saw off the Argentine invasion in 1982. Although his family was thousands of miles away, he threw himself into his job.
By this time his knowledge of communications and stores was invaluable as the Army set about setting up a secure link to Downing Street for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “I was still in stores but I was more specialist at this stage.” He points to a plaque on the wall, which marks his involvement in the operation.
“It’s funny really – we used to listen to the IRA in Ireland and they used to listen to us. In Germany we were listening to the Russians and they were listening to us and in the Falklands it was Argentina ”
Skee had other postings, including a listening station in Germany. “I was the quartermaster in stores then and the job had a lot of responsibility.
“We could see the Russians from our base. They were looking at us and we were looking at them.”
By now Skee was an acting warrant officer and he could have been confirmed in his post if he had agreed to stay in the Army.
“ I had to consider Kelvin’s future. I was 31 and I thought I was young enough to start a different job in civilian life. I knew guys who had stayed in the Army for 22 or 26 years and had gone into security or had done nothing after they left. That wasn’t for me.”