Nottingham City Transport (NCT) Engineering Director Gary Mason retired at the end of 2021 after a 30-year career in the bus industry.
Mr Mason’s contribution to the award-winning East Midlands operator was celebrated on 22 December through a web-streamed presentation. Colleagues from NCT and friends from suppliers and trade bodies looked on as he received gifts and a retirement certificate.
Mr Mason joined the bus industry in 1992 when he started work with West Midlands Travel, the forerunner to today’s National Express West Midlands. After spending three years with Veolia Transport, he became an NCT employee in March 2012.
Since then, he has overseen all the operator’s engineering functions and was lauded for his role in the development and introduction of the double-deck biogas bus. In 120 Scania ADL Enviro400CBGs, NCT has the largest fleet of such vehicles in the world. 23 more are on order for delivery in 2022. In addition, a major retrofit programme has been rolled out across NCT’s diesel fleet, which has been entirely Euro VI compliant for almost two years.
Paying tribute to Mr Mason’s contribution to the East Midlands business, NCT Managing Director David Astill says: “Gary Mason definitely joins the eminent list of people who have headed up the engineering function at NCT and been held in such high regard, both within the business and the wider bus industry.
“Gary will be remembered as the enthusiastic driving force behind the biogas project, but his legacy goes much further. Behind the scenes, he has made several changes to work process and structures to the benefit of the business, and most recently has been instrumental in ensuring that the correct working practices were put in place to keep our staff and customers safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Adds Mr Mason: “I would like to say a massive thank you to all the people within NCT and the wider bus industry that I have worked with, either directly or indirectly, over the last 30 years.
“The industry has been a fantastic place to spend the majority of my working life, and the dedication and quality of the people within it are second to none. I could not have spent the last 10 years of my career in a better company than NCT, nor in a better city than Nottingham.
“I am sad to be leaving at a time when public transport is facing such huge challenges as a result of the pandemic, but I remain convinced that modal shift from private cars to public transport is key to achieving a low carbon future.”
