Mark Haslam - Area Environment Manager, Environment Agency

I graduated from Manchester University in 1988 with a BSc Honours Degree in Biology and Geology, but it was not until 1990 that I embarked upon my career in environmental protection.

I began my career with West Yorkshire Waste Management, with a two-month temporary contract as a landfill gas survey technician. This post involved identifying former landfill sites, monitoring sites and analysing and presenting data. The contract was subsequently extended and I became more interested in the inspection of sites and investigation of incidents. When a vacancy arose for an assistant waste regulation inspector I was taken on as permanent employee.

I then moved to Staffordshire County Council as an environment control officer, undertaking inspections of authorised and unauthorised waste management sites and assessing applications for waste disposal licences. This proved to be a good move as the department required additional staff to implement the new waste management licensing regime. So I gained promotion to senior environment control officer. This post was a team leader’s job with six staff involved in waste management site inspections, enforcement investigations and issuing waste management licenses. In 1994, I gained the post of principal environment control officer which involved determining waste management licences, modifications, transfers, surrenders and exemptions. During this period I also had the opportunity to manage the industrial waste survey and write the Staffordshire Waste Management Plan and Annual Reports.

I was transferred to the Environment Agency in 1996 where I became more involved in waste minimisation and packaging waste. As team leader in tactical planning, I managed staff involved in packaging waste compliance, waste management planning and waste minimisation. It also allowed me to widen my experience into the fields of pollution prevention and water quality sampling and planning.

In 2001, I took a nine month assignment as team leader process industry regulation and radioactive substance regulation. I then worked as team leader process industry regulation in Nottingham before undertaking an 18 month assignment as the Midlands regional change co-ordinator. This involved co-ordinating and managing a number of change projects across the Midlands region to ensure benefits realisation, identifying cross project issues, risks and opportunities and ensuring environmental outcomes were achieved. In September 2004 I became area environment manager, which involves managing a department of 65 staff who contribute to achieving the EA’s environmental objectives.

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