Kev Connerty: from the Royal Air Force to Thales

Kev Connerty spent 23 years in the Royal Air Force (RAF) before joining Thales in the London Underground project team, crediting much of his skillset and success to his military background.

He is now a Training and Competency Manager, but during his 11 years in Thales’s ground transportation business he has also worked as a Testing and Commissioning Engineer and a Radio Engineer.

Kev attributes his career progression and success at Thales to the discipline, values and training he received during his time in the RAF. He believes that the armed forces provided the technical grounding at the start of his working life, which was then built upon and developed further as he rose through the Thales management ranks. He’s certainly not the only ex-military to find success in the Thales family, and many of his colleagues have previously served with the Army or Navy. 

In many ways Kev thinks that the transition for a lot of ex-military is easier because of the similarities between the values held by the armed forces and Thales. In particular he has recognised that “can-do attitude” installed by the forces in a lot of his Thales colleagues over the years, particularly in the London Underground telecommunications project team.

As a Radio Engineer working on the London Underground, Kev worked on a lot of the station and tunnel cabling, and was part of the team which installed radiating and link cables all the way from Green Park to West Ham for the Jubilee Line extension. Conditions down in the depths of the tunnels or under the platforms can at times be either very cold or very hot, but Kev maintains that his military training installed an ability to “just get on with the job” and keep a cool head under pressure. 

The radio engineers often work under tight deadlines as keeping the tube network running is a top priority: this sometimes only gives a window of an hour or two to install and test new cables. As Lead Radio Engineer, Kev was often in situations where a quick on-site decision was necessary: “How I’ve dealt with that, I think has come from my military background.”

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Kev’s time spent as a Radio Engineer was the access to the many passageways and tunnels beneath London. The vast London Underground network is closed to most ordinary Londoners and dates back to the Victorian era. Over the years Kev has found it fascinating to see the now-defunct underground rooms and old passageways.
 
So, how did Kev transition from the RAF to Thales in the first place? While a lot of ex-military at Thales come through the obvious route - joining the defence or aerospace part of the business - Kev hadn’t even heard of Thales when he left the RAF. Fresh out of the forces, Kev started in installation and business telephones before re-training as an electrician. It was only when a recruitment agency uncovered Kev’s experience with radars and navigational aids on airfields, plus telecoms and electrical installation knowledge, that he was introduced to Thales’s ground transportation business.

So why do so many ex-forces people navigate to Thales? Kev sums it up: “I think when guys join Thales they pass on to their forces connections, this is a great company to work for, why don’t you come and join us?”

Kev and Thales are keeping London safe, secure and on the move.