David Johnson is Sales Director for South Coast Science (SCS). He joined the company approximately six months ago to help focus their sales effort and increase the profile of the company and their products. Within this role, his main responsibilities include developing an effective product roadmap, establishing back-office commercial systems and building routes to market via new distributors.
Another area of work that he has been involved with is the development of several different products to suit key air quality sectors and address changing market requirements as the industry matures. He observes that the measurement of indoor and outdoor air quality is reasonably well established; however, applications such as personal exposure monitoring via a portable device and within ‘smart city’ environments are not as supported. David is excited to now be addressing these markets and believes that these new products will spearhead the company’s innovation and chart the entry into new markets that will very soon be amongst the most popular applications for this technology. In view of upcoming air quality legislation, running in parallel with this is the work the company are doing to make the products as accurate as possible through extensive collocation with government reference devices.
On leaving school, David undertook an engineering apprenticeship with a manufacturer of compressors in his hometown of Ipswich. During this time, he also attended the University of Suffolk and, following this, undertook two further qualifications in electronic engineering and robotics – the latter being the first course in the UK to cover the fundamentals of this new technology. David moved to South Africa in 1985 and, with his career having taken a commercial turn, he decided to undertake a diploma in marketing management. On completion of the course, he accepted his first role in sales management with a distributor of German-made test and measurement equipment, where he remained for 8 years. Since then, he has remained in the sensor industry and has worked with technologies such as strain-gauges and fibre-optics for measurement of mechanical strain and, more recently, electrochemical sensors for monitoring of air quality.
SCS comprises a group of scientists and engineers with a passion for environmental science and years of experience working with Alphasense electrochemical air quality sensors and low noise electronics. Whilst the company has achieved many of the technical milestones set for itself, unsurprisingly it has ambitions for greater success and to build on its close collaboration with the United Nations (UNEP), with whom the company developed its Praxis/Urban product. David notes that it is his ambition to help the company achieve this, and to demonstrate how customers can realise real benefits from the company’s dedication to technical excellence.
David joined the IES in 2020 as an Associate Member to learn about wider environmental industry issues and to access resources to allow him to learn from and feed into the industry. “The ability to dip into the vast library of reports and articles is especially useful for anyone developing a technology roadmap for their company. Additionally, having a CPD (continuous professional development) programme running in the background ensures that my skills remain relevant and up to date.”
