Peter Jessop retires from Stahl
28/01/2009
Peter Jessop retired at the end of 2008 after a having a career with Stahl that spanned 32 years, and took him to many countries producing leather. During this time he met and made friends with customers all over the world as he sought to develop and encourage the use of his company’s products and technology within the leather industry.
He joined Stahl in November 1966 from the Pittard Group in his home town of Leeds, UK, where he had worked for many years in both leather finishing and wet-end processing. This provided a practical and technical background which proved invaluable when giving support and advice to customers and colleagues over the time spent in the field.
His first job with Stahl was as a sales technician attached to Stahl UK in Loughborough. He soon became sales manager with responsibilities covering the UK and Pakistan, the latter being a country to which he travelled frequently as he led the building up of the business from scratch. Alongside this he established a loyal team in the country, most of whom still work for Stahl and joined Stahl Pakistan Private Limited when it was formed a few months ago.
In 1978, Peter Jessop was promoted to managing director of Stahl in the UK and ran the business successfully for ten years. During this time he travelled widely to support the business in key areas such as India and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Scandinavia. Never afraid to get his hands dirty, he helped customers with their finishing techniques, and even in such tasks as brick-laying when he helped to lay the foundations of some new application facilities and offices in Pakistan.
As the leather industry began to decline in the UK during the 1980s, Stahl closed the Loughborough facilities and Peter moved to corporate headquarters in Waalwijk, the Netherlands, where he took on a global job promoting Stahl’s leather finishing technology. He travelled even more widely, now visiting key leather producing markets in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australasia and Africa. He became well-known throughout the industry, visiting many tanneries in countries as diverse as Brazil, Mexico, the US and Thailand, where his friendly approach to providing practical help and advice was warmly welcomed. During this time he ran many training courses for customers and for local colleagues whom he often called upon to help with local technical and language support.
For the last 18 months of his career Peter Jessop spent almost all of his time in China helping to develop Stahl’s new business in this huge and fascinating country. Such spare time as he had alongside this has been spent running Stahl’s new fashion team and its links with its Design Studio in Milan.
He said on retiring that he had thoroughly enjoyed meeting people and customers involved with the leather industry and will long remember their friendship, and the happy times spent in their company.
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