This year marks Constructive Evaluation’s 30th anniversary. To celebrate the occasion, we thought we’d share with you the history of the company, penned by our late founder, Paul Moore.
CE was borne out of the recession of 1993, I had been put on a three day week by my employer, who gave his blessing to my idea to start something of my own. I originally wanted to call the company Constructive Solutions but the name was already taken, after a few beers in the George at Felpham my brother Graham suggested Evaluation and it stuck.
Armed with an Escort estate for transport, a Bosch drill, and a brand new Kolectric cover meter I was set! I began work from a desk in my brother’s office in Chichester and set about ringing everybody I knew (and a few I didn’t!) Initially business was slow and I worked hard to progress the contracts over my two available week days. I worked on the rail at weekends covering additional labour as and when required with support from Graham within MSA (since dissolved) who provided invaluable admin support.
After year one I was able to end my involvement with my previous employer and concentrate full-time on Constructive. This enabled me to expand my client base and develop the business further with the employment of additional staff.
Over the second and third years we went from strength to strength and the company was able to evolve and diversify. Our services expanded into soils as well as materials testing. (My background as a soils laboratory technician as well as working in the concrete testing industry for Tarmac held me in good stead and allowed me to provide a greater scope of services and, therefore, a wider client catchment.) New staff were taken on to progress further the Geotechnical and Geo-environmental departments and to better progress the business and increase turnover. New offices were sought in Chichester to house the additional staff and to facilitate our growth into a multidisciplinary consultancy. Another office move in the late 1990s saw the business grow yet further with 2000 square feet of office space at Vinnetrow industrial park, eventually we moved out of these offices to our current premises in Ford.
We now support a staff of some 25-30 covering the disciplines of Geo-technical, Geoenvironmental, and Building and materials testing with other specialists in asbestos surveys, drainage, and historic surveys to name a few. We have particular expertise on the rail and hold qualifications and certification supporting each of these disciplines. We have also set-up a small soils laboratory, conveniently situated on site, to provide the basics for soils and concrete testing with speedy turnaround.
We are very grateful to our numerous hard working professionals in the growing team, and many of our supportive and loyal clients for helping CE to become all that it has in these years of operations and would like to extend our thanks to those people.
Since Paul’s sad passing in 2019 we have faced lockdowns, re-structuring, changing management and staff but we remain resilient. We are very grateful to our hardworking teams who; with the loyalty of historic clients and the trust of new, are continuing to drive the company forward. Our thanks go out to all who have remained supportive throughout and we look forward to flourishing during the decade ahead.
