After spending the first part of his working life as a Chartered Civil Engineer, Pete moved into Quality Management in the mid 1980s. Working as a Quality System Manager first for United Utilities and North West Water and more recently for Bechtel, the American project management giant, Pete gained a wide experience of developing and implementing Management Systems and value adding internal process audit programmes. In 2001 and 2002 Pete was assigned to Bechtel's corporate Six Sigma Black Belt programme.

Pete was first trained in use of the EFQM Excellence Model in 1994 and subsequently gained practical experience of the Model both within United Utilities and as a Lead Award Assessor first with Excellence North West and then as an Assessor for the UK Excellence Awards.

Pete joined Excellence North West in October 2004 to head up the North West Business Excellence Awards - now the North of England Business Excellence Awards - and is a Fellow of the Chartered Quality Institute.