Monday 5th December 2022:    Congratulations to Barry Murphy, Plant Manager, John Sisk & Son who won Plant Manager of the Year 2022 from Machinery Movers Magazine (Irish Contractors Plant Association or IPCA).

At the end of September, Barry received a phone call out of the blue. The person on the other end was Brian Coogan from Machinery Movers Magazine (Irish Contractors Plant Association or IPCA), telling him he had won Plant Manager of the Year.

“I thought it was a wind-up,” says Barry, “I wasn’t even aware of it. After that I just couldn’t stop laughing – I still don’t think it’s even hit me.”


Identity


There’s good reason why Barry had no idea about the award – the two-month process is kept undercover until the last minute. In deciding the winner, the ICPA make contact – without revealing their identity – with either the nominee directly, their team or clients, for an independent appraisal of the nominee’s fit for the award.

Barry thinks his win is down to the fact that he likes helping the contracts as best he can. “If you ask the site, I’d say it’s because I try to go out of my way to help people,” he says. “That’s what I love about the job – if there’s a problem, I love to try solve it, even if it’s something I know nothing about I will try point people in the right direction.”

Barry has only ever worked in the Plant department since joining Sisk over 20 years ago, in 2001, back in the days of logger books and faxes.

“I joined as general office admin! I had come from a job where I arranged transport and logistics for Tesco. Sisk were looking for somebody for admin, logistics, order processing.” Barry was offered the job almost on the spot: “Since that day I’ve been here, loving it. I love helping the sites.”

Future

In recent times that help has also involved advising on more sustainable options and the Plant team have recently returned from the trade, in Munich, where the future or machinery is very much green.

“It’s trying to find the right balance and it’s a bit of a learning curve. Batteries and generators are our next big thing – it’s getting our heads around how to set up properly. With a lot of these new products you need to be more tech-savvy in order to get the set-up right.”

The Plant department team have started to positively impact our sustainability targets. “We’ve cut energy consumption on our office units dramatically: we’ve LED lighting with PIRs, new heaters and better drying room set-ups for lower energy consumption. Everything we are trying in the Plant must be better, cleaner, safer than what came before.”

But back to the issue at hand – Barry’s winning accolade form Machinery Movers Magazine & the Irish Plant Contractors Association (IPCA) was presented to him on Saturday night (Saturday December 3) at an event in the Sheraton Athlone. 

The Sisk Plant department attended the gig to help Barry mark the occasion. It was another milestone for the Plant Department and confirmation that the hard work the team has put in over the last few years has not gone unnoticed.