Beck Dorrington doesn’t just work in Health, Safety, Wellbeing, and Sustainability—she lives and breathes it. With nearly 25 years in the industry, she knows exactly how things work, how to make change happen, and how to bring people with her along the way. A natural relationship builder and a fierce advocate for the women in her circle, Beck’s journey started with one simple goal: to make a difference. From stepping into an IMS Assistant role in 2001 to shaping industry-leading wellbeing strategies today, she’s been at the heart of some of the biggest projects and conversations in the field. Passionate, driven, and always ready to challenge the status quo—this is Beck in action.
I was working in recruitment but knew that it wasn’t what I wanted to do as a career so I gave my CV to a recruiter and said “I don’t know what I want to do apart from make a difference, let me know if you have a job you think I’ll love”. They came back with an IMS Assistant role for Carillion working on the first ever MAC contract in Area 8, tasked with helping to compile the management system. That was in 2001. I needed convincing as I knew nothing about Construction or Highway Maintenance, but I soon knew that I had found a tribe that I wanted to be a part of! The team took me under their wing and trained me until I was a fully fledged IMS Advisor. And ever since then I’ve grown as a professional having the privilege of being a part of some really cool projects working with ace people and the happier outcome making some brilliant friends along the way!
I can only remember growing up in a vicarage as my Dad was a vicar, but when I was born, he was an Engineer (working at Rubery Owen). He used to tell me about how industry was in the 60’s and 70’s and how he’d been a H&S rep at the time that the H&SAW Act came in and how difficult some people took to that change. But, as a vicar / person he was an utter inspiration in teaching me and showing me how to be empathetic, standing up for what was right even if it isn’t popular, being tolerant and understanding as well as being able to talk to anyone about anything (not just at a coffee morning or jumble sale!) and how to inspire people with words every Sunday through his sermons. He was absolutely the source of my being incapable of looking at anything without trying to understand the root cause as he’d always ask me to work out why someone said or did what they did – I’d say that all of that meant that when you look at the qualities needed to work in H&S there was nothing else I’d end up doing!
So many! But the project I won’t forget in a hurry was M1 Jct 19. I was Project H&S Manager working for Skanska. I was very familiar with the A14 and that junction, right from our cross-country course at school having to be changed due to the A14 being built through it, from my time with Carillion on Area 8 and how many years the junction was in the planning. It had been a dangerous junction – I suggested that maybe Sally Traffic from Radio 2 should open it when we finished as she’d had reason to say Catthorpe Interchange a lot on the traffic news. But seriously, this was the first project where it became clear to me that Infrastructure Civil Engineering happens when there is a problem to be solved and it means more than building roads and structures. It will always give me a warm glow knowing that I was a little part in statistically many people going home every night because we made it a much safer junction to travel through. I still get flashbacks to when it was being built when I pass through it and it makes me smile.
Easily it’s been doing my Mental Health First Aid and my ASIST training. The wellbeing side to my role is and has been since before I knew it, my absolute mission in life – these qualifications gave me the process and most importantly the confidence to be able to support and signpost anyone when they need it.
I’m not too sure to be honest but having been involved in wellbeing since it started becoming a ‘thing’ I’d like to continue to develop that side of my role. I am very much looking forward to working on a project with one of our Clients, BBV regarding ISO 45003 to see where we can take the next steps in understanding psychological safety and what that means for how we manage that as an industry. I was very attracted to working for Danny Sullivan Group due to our SMILE360 strategy and it gives me an awful lot of satisfaction to be able to support people during a difficult time and inspire people to be able to make the most out of themselves by a maintaining or improving their sense of good mental health – life overall is a beautiful journey and I don’t think I could ever stop that mission.
That is far too big a question for the wordcount I have! I will say it’s a different world to how it was when I started 24 years ago. The transient nature of our work doesn’t necessarily allow us to have much of a work / life balance sometimes especially when women are seen as the natural caregiving parent. My career was certainly limited by being a single parent to my son, I see it in two stages – once he became old enough to be left at home and before – I couldn’t have kept uprooting him from project to project.
History – Elizabeth 1 – bought to life brilliantly by my amazing history teacher Mrs Coggins – I’ll never forget her explaining the changes made to churches after Mary 1 by saying “Elizabeth was a girly girl and liked colourful things”.
Public Figure – Phillipa Perry – her books and replies to problems are always thoughtful and kind – the suggested further reading in her column has been responsible for filling up my bookshelves (I love her artwork / creativity too)
Mentor – A lot of women – the Thursday night dinner gang are a group of people very important to me for their friendship, but I learned a lot about being a woman in construction by being on the team of a fantastic, kind soul of a boss / person, Liz Braithwaite. I owe her more than she knows.
