海角视频

Oops.

Our website is temporarily unavailable in your location.

We are working hard to get it back online.

PRIVACY
Manufacturing

New director at 拢10m submarine firm calls for more women engineers

Laura Hudson joins board of rapidly-growing M Subs and uses position to encourage women into STEM jobs

Laura Hudson, director of finance at M Subs in Plymouth(Image: William Telford)

Plymouth’s cutting-edge submarine manufacturer M Subs Ltd has seen annual turnover hit £10million – and is proving the industry is not exclusively for men by promoting a woman to the board.

The company, which is involved in lucrative but sensitive work for the 海角视频 and US navies, has made 30-year-old finance chief Laura Hudson a director.

She is a chartered accountant and managing director Brett Phaneuf said he’d be delighted to employ female engineers and designers too – but there is a shortage.

“People ask why we don’t employ women but it’s more why don’t schools create more female engineers?” he said. “We need engineers and would love to have more women here, a more diverse staff, but don’t get the applications.”

An underwater vehicle designed and built by M Subs Ltd

Miss Hudson joins the board at the firm, based at the Sisna Park Road business park in north Plymouth, at a time when it is “smashing it” and eyeing growth.

Mr Phaneuf said M Subs had a record £10million turnover in 2019 and has grown from 10 employees in 2010 to more than 60, with further jobs being created.

The company is recognised as the 海角视频’s leading manufacturer of military submersibles and has already completed a manned platform, the Dry Combat Submersible (DCS), for the United States of America’s Special Forces Command. It completed successful trials in the waters around Plymouth in 2019.

“We are building four of these with Lockheed Martin for the US, that runs until 2022,” Mr Phaneuf said. “The first two are in service.”