About us

Steven Brown has been the Managing Director of FMS since January 2018. Steven is a qualified Chartered Accountant and began his career at Simpson Forsyth where he completed his CA training. He then moved on to the parent company of FMS, First Tech Ltd as Group Finance Manager overseeing all financial, commercial and accounting aspects of a number of all companies within the group, subsequently becoming Finance Director in June 2016, prior to taking up his current role with FMS.

Steven has overall responsibility for all functions of the business and has lead the recent expansion of the business which has seen headcount double over the last two years.

Hailing from Orkney originally but now living in the North East of Scotland, Darren is an experienced mariner with a degree in business management and over 20yrs in the marine and offshore industries.

Initially starting his career in the merchant navy, predominantly on offshore vessels, Darren transitioned into marine related roles for Oil and Gas operators when his family started to grow and the shorter trips became appealing. Having spent time as a Marine Coordinator for Exxon Mobil (platform based) and Marine Control (FPSO based) with BP he took the plunge an came ashore into the world of consultancy and project management.

Since coming ashore Darren has worked his way up the ranks and previous to coming to FMS spent 5 years as Marine Manager for another large consultancy company/competitor. Darren has covered all aspects of Marine Consultancy in his time ashore from vessel assurance through to in house marine specialist support for Operators/Rig Owners. He has project managed hundreds of mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) moves and led the marine aspects of numerous long term mooring projects worldwide from both the onshore and offshore aspects.

Now with FMS, Darren is using his experience in management and the consultancy sector to develop our in house capabilities and service offerings.

Dave McGinlay, originally from Fort William in West Scotland, moved to Aberdeen as a semi-professional footballer in 1991. Since this time, he has worked in a variety of sales and business development roles in a number of oil service companies in Aberdeen.

Dave has been involved in the Mooring Industry for over 10 years, working for an Aberdeen-based company as Business Development Manager before joining First Marine in 2018 as Business Development Director. He is well-known in the industry for making connections and getting the job done. With an extensive network locally and abroad, Dave has been instrumental in building the First Marine Offering to the market in the UK and across the world.

First starting in the Oil and Gas Sector in 1994 with Huntly Equipment Rentals, Paul is an industry veteran of 26 years.

Having worked up through the ranks from Photocopier to Materials Management and Purchase Control, Paul later took up the role of International Business Development and Marketing Manager at Balmoral group covering both their Wire Rope and Mooring divisions , which later became Viking Seatech in 2006 and he worked there until 2015, developing a large network of industry contracts, expanding the global footprint of the organisation. During this time several international partnerships were formed and grown as the company expanded.

Paul joined the First Tech group in 2015, working with First Integrated for 3 years before moving to FMS to return to the mooring sector to work as Sales and Marketing Manager responsible for the external image of the company on social media and supply chain relationships as we enter into a new era with diversification into the renewables sector and our much expanded rig moving and marine consultancy / engineering offering.

Born in London, Martin moved to Aberdeen at an early age and was already on the deck of a vessel as a teenager.

With over 25 years oil and gas experience with 18 years specifically in mooring equipment, Martin has evolved from grass-roots level at International Mooring Systems (George Craig Group) to key operational roles at Balmoral Marine and Viking Moorings (Operations Supervisor) where he was responsible for overseeing major contract requirements for key blue-chip clients and also worldwide chain inspection services (Technical Services Supervisor).

As Operations Manager for now over two years, Martin brings years of experience to FMS and looks to build his team to exceed client expectations.

After graduating from Subsea Engineering at The University of Aberdeen, Fan has worked for major marine engineering consultancy companies as a naval architect and subsea engineer in Aberdeen. With 10 years exposure to offshore oil & gas and renewable projects, Fan has gathered extensive experience in mooring design, structural analysis, offshore installations and project management.

Fan started his career at Interocean as a naval architect, mostly responsible for performing open sea and quayside mooring analysis; thereafter Fan was working for Global Maritime for 7 years as a senior subsea engineer; Fan was also involved in the UK’s largest nuclear power station installation project as an independent consultant.

Having joined FMS for almost a year now, Fan supports the team well by conducting the engineering services to the highest industry standard.

Tom is chartered engineer with a PhD in turbine hydrodynamics and more than 10 years post-doctoral R&D, technical and industrial experience in offshore renewable energy. Prior to that he obtained an honours degree in aeronautical engineering and a masters in renewable energy systems.

He completed a PhD and worked for four years on cutting edge research projects at the University of Strathclyde, before transitioning into industry and joining tidal turbine start-up Nova Innovation Ltd. Along with designing the novel rotor system for the M100 turbine, he was part of the wider RD&D and engineering build and subsequently offshore teams which deployed the world’s first commercial array of tidal turbines in the Bluemull Sound, Shetland.

Tom then joined FMS’s sister company Nautricity Ltd as senior engineer where he worked on the final design, build and on- and offshore installation through to decommissioning of a highly novel 500kW grid connected tidal turbine at the European Marine Energy Centre tidal site at the Fall of Warness.

Now, after working in the fledgling tidal power sector since 2006, Tom has moved back to his aeronautical roots and into wind energy. He joined the FMS team in August 2020 to establish our Glasgow office with a mission to develop FMS’s floating offshore wind offering.