_________________________________________________________________________________ Ashvale Civil Engineering
enabled Ashvale to continually expand as it secured more clients and sites . We got to a point , however , where there physically weren ’ t the hours in the day for Aled to manage all of the office side on his own . It was around that time that my mum , Dawn Cunningham , came on board to support us , alongside her full-time job , and even my then-girlfriend Joanne joined , as we ’ d recently started dating ,” he continues . “ She ’ s still working with us today , managing all the plant hire accounts , and we ’ ve now been married for 15 years and have three children ! On the other hand , Mum has recently retired , but that takes nothing away from her 18 years of service with the organisation .”
As Ashvale grew from strength-tostrength , it steadily built the incredible reputation that it holds within the UK groundworks industry today . Meanwhile , it has successfully reflected this internally as well , which is demonstrated by the relatively large portion of its workforce that have been with the business for over 15 years . In 2015 ,
however , Mick and Aled were ready for a change of pace . They had both got to a point where they were ready to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their long , decorated careers , so Steve and a group of colleagues began the process of a management buyout .
“ Me , Seamus Cleary , and Michael Cunningham , my younger brother , decided to carry Ashvale on into its next era ,” Steve explains . “ Seamus had worked with us as a quantity surveyor for a number of years and proven himself to be an invaluable member of the team , so he was perfect to step into Aled ’ s role . Michael , on the other hand , was one of our best machine operators and had overseen multiple large projects .
“ Since the buyout , the three of us have been successfully covering all aspects of running the business , along with our teams , and have actually scaled up Ashvale to an even larger size than before . Today , the organisation supports and works with some of the biggest homebuilders and contractors and manages its own fleet of
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