Obituary - Douglas Ashmead, entrepreneur and business troubleshooter

Died: November 19, 2016

DOUGLAS Ashmead, who has died at the age of 89, enjoyed a varied and successful career as a management consultant, "company doctor", and entrepreneur.

He is best known for setting up Highland Metals in Elgin in 1978, with funding from the Scottish Development Agency (SDA), to address the emerging oil business in the North of Scotland. Although the opportunity for galvanizing in the oil market turned out to be limited, the business grew steadily through the 80s and 90s and was involved in projects like the Murrayfield stadium, the Scottish Parliament building and more recently the Kelpies project.

This success culminated in the building of a second plant in Cumbernauld in 2002 ,and today both plants employee over 100 people.

Douglas Ashmead grew up in Riddrie on the east side of Glasgow and served in the Signal Crops in the latter stages of the Second Wold War before going on to read applied chemistry at "the Tech", now Strathclyde University, graduating in 1951.

He subsequently went to work at J&P Coates and the National Coal Board in research positions before moving into production management at British Aluminium and at UKAEA's Dounreay Fast Breeder reactor at Thurso before starting his consultancy career with Urwick Orr and Partners, a pioneering management consultancy company known for its novel management ideas and strong principles.

In the mid 1970s he opened his own consultancy company, Douglas Ashmead and Partners Ltd, as the market moved to a more specialised rather than general one to focus on company turnarounds. He also recognised the need for part-time rather than non-executive directors and sat on a number of boards, notably Babcock and Wilcox, Shanks and McEwen, and Prosper Engineering.

He was also engaged by a number of public bodies and government departments to look at technology transfer from public to private sector including a study on the viability of UK/Russian cooperation in the oil industry. He excelled in this role and was known for rigor, method and agility in dealing with multifaceted business issues.

He was a critical thinker with a reputation for asking probing and difficult questions to resolve issues, usually doing it in an engaging and humorous fashion. He strove to make a difference and enjoyed the challenge and debate. He was a great humanitarian, taking on the larger issues in life like population control and even writing a short book on the subject Standing Room Only.

Douglas Ashmead and his wife Pat spent many weeks each year visiting their son and his family in California. He will be remembered there for asking deep philosophical questions, taking up controversial positions and challenging his grandchildren.

His great passion was sailing and he owned a number of yachts over the years, the last of which was Contender in which he sailed on the West Coast of Scotland. He was an active member of the Royal Northern and Clyde yacht club for 40 years and was Rear Commodore for several years in the 1980s. He was also a keen tennis player, playing every week until the age of 87 at the Helensburgh Lawn Tennis Club.

He is survived by his wife Patricia, daughter Jennifer, son Allan, daughter-in-law Anne, son-in-law Gordon Bulloch, and grandchildren Allyson, Cameron, Elizabeth, and Evie.