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Robert Hopkin - Innovation and Workforce Development Manager

Robert Hopkin joined the Rail Alliance in June 2009.  Prior to joining the Rail Alliance, Robert was an engineering apprentice (in his youth), a secondary school mathematics and games teacher (in his twenties) and, most recently, he has enjoyed a successful military career leaving the Royal Air Force after 21 years in the rank of Wing Commander.  As a training specialist, he has experienced all aspects of the training and development lifecycle, including: analysing, designing, staging, validating and evaluating training for the RAF. 

Specialist employment included: 4 years designing and evaluating Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear training courses across all 3 Services; 2 years creating, editing and publishing Air Power doctrine material; and 2 years spent monitoring training standards for the training of officer recruits at the RAF College at Cranwell.  Robert has seen active military service – most notably during the first Gulf War as well as being deployed internationally to the US, Central America and Europe. 

Significantly, a constant thread throughout his military career has been the management of the RAF’s technical trade training, whether in the ground engineering trades at RAF St Athan or aircraft engineering/telecommunication trades at RAF Cosford (where he oversaw the RAF’s modern apprenticeship programme for aircraft engineering, telecommunications engineering, general engineering, motor vehicle engineering as well as vocational learning programmes for safety equipment operatives, painters and finishers, photographers and physical training instructors).  Latterly, he concentrated on Workforce Development as the Career and Personal Development Manager for all of the RAF’s training officers (and their civilian counterparts working in Learning Centres) at home and abroad. 

Robert joins us fresh from a NATO tour in Belgium where he was the Director of Support at the NATO Programming Centre – an independent NATO Headquarters.  Robert is married to Dr Pamella Murray-Hopkin (University of Worcester Business School); his interests include: cooking (and eating!), rugby (watching only – doctor’s orders!), photography, motorcycling and last, but not least, motor racing, where he has returned to karting after an absence of some 30 years.

 To Contact Robert, Please email: robert.hopkin@railalliance.co.uk

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