Our Team
Our strong family values have been at our core since day one, spanning eight generations, and we still maintain that ethos today. Our employees are our single biggest asset, and we are fully committed to developing home-grown talent to ensure the longevity of the company, to sustain our key company values, as well as help preserve an artisan skill.
Developing our people and enabling them to grow and learn is important to us. Our teams are highly skilled at what they do, in what is a niche market, and they enable us to provide the best customer experience through our company-wide expertise and approachability.
Investing in new talent is also key. Our Technical Services department takes engineering students on placement from local universities for experience in the field, with many joining the team on graduation. We currently have six engineers who have been recruited through our student placement program.
Our Managing Director, Simon Parkinson, is the 8th generation of the Parkinson family, taking the reins in 2019 from his father, David, who had held the role since 1985. Simon works closely with his sister Joanne who is Commercial Director and Company Secretary.
Today we have over 90 employees, with over 50 skilled craftsmen involved in the manufacture of refractories. The rest is split across our Technical Services Division, Sales, Laboratory and Support functions.
Onboarding Video
Parkinson Spencer Refractories has been around for over 220 years – that’s eight generations of a family led organisation with a loyal and multigenerational workforce.
We work together and support each other, just like a family would. In this short video we welcome employees to be part of the PSR family.
Watch our short video…
Message from Simon
PSR has come a long way over the last 220 years, which is testament to the generations of people that have helped build it into the market leader it is today.
As the 8th generation of the Parkinson family, I take pride in being part of PSR’s journey and being able to move it forward for the next generation as we evolve and innovate and become more socially and environmentally responsible.
Our people play a big part in that journey too, they are the cogs that keep the business turning, so we endeavour to give something back by investing in their futures too. Providing development opportunities to cultivate their expertise, supports our succession planning, enables us to nurture the future talent of the business and helps to preserve the family heritage and longevity of PSR.
Simon Parkinson
Managing Director