Meet The Trainers
John Laban
Mission Critical Facilities Consultant
John has been working in the Telecommunications and Information Transport Systems (ITS) industry for over 35 years, starting as a telecommunication technician in the London Stock Exchange with with BT in 1975. He formed one of the first structured cabling businesses in the UK in the early 1980's and after his grand motorcycle tour he was headhunted back into BT to design their first corporate LAN infrastructure and to develop BT's first structured cabling system. BT sponsored John on the first Cisco course in the UK and the first MSc in Computer Network Engineering, and then a Post Graduate Diploma in Management Studies from which he progressed onto becoming the BT Planning Manager for London Docklands. After taking the lucrative voluntary redundancy package from BT John then set up an ITS Design Consultancy business that involved some of the largest national and international projects. Headhunted into Siemens on a three year assignment John was the design authority responsible for the $100m Ford Motor Company ITS upgrade project throughout Europe and he was also a member of the team that produced the first Ford Motor Company Corporate ITS Standard. Due to the general lack of quality in the ITS industry John was driven to "professionalise" the ITS industry - starting with a professional diploma programme for the Telecommunications Managers Association which then led him on to become the first Bicsi RCDD in the UK and soon after a Bicsi Master Instructor teaching RCDD & Technician programmes. John was voted by his piers to be honorary Bicsi European Region Director and later as one of the "top ten movers and shakers" in the UK ITS industry. From his vast national and international experience John saw just how wasteful the ITS industry is so he became the first UK member of the Society of American Value Engineers practicing systematic value engineering methods on ITS to eliminate waste and maximise value for his clients. Outside of the ITS industry Johns interests are wide and varied and his latest project involves the rescue and refurbishment of a dilapidated 17th century Inn and Pub in rural Suffolk. John is now searching for more firsts and he is pleased to be part of the new training team at DatacenterDynamics and he describes himself as "a practicing engineer that teaches and not a teacher that teaches engineering" and he looks forward to learning from his students and making new friends.