Strathaven man Kenny Naylor is celebrating his retirement after 40 years of helping to transform Scotland’s water and waste water services.
The senior project manager for Scottish Water first joined the Department of Sewage at Strathclyde Regional Council (SRC) in August 1980 after studying civil engineering at Strathclyde University and his involvement in the construction of Stonehouse Sewage Treatment Works as a contractor.
In those early days with SRC he achieved his civil engineering chartership.
Since then, he has enjoyed a career that helped clean up the River Clyde, delivered new water treatment works for Glasgow and Edinburgh, pioneered the use of innovative technologies to treat waste and reduce carbon, and even met the Queen at the opening of Milngavie Water Treatment Works in 2008.
Of his career, Kenny told Lanarkshire Live : “When I started at SRC, we had no real concept of what a customer was.
"We would pitch up on site for massive projects with no notice or discussion and get to work.
“During my time with Scottish Water, I have been part of many teams that have transformed the way we inform and involve customers and communities in the delivery of projects.”
Scottish Water employs over 4000 staff and Kenny has used this as an opportunity to work in a wide range of roles.
He has been a civil engineer, designing new infrastructure; a public affairs manager, working closely with MSPs and policymakers in Holyrood; and a consultant, providing guidance to utilities across the globe.
He added: “I have been really fortunate to be able to work in so many different roles.
"When people think of Scottish Water, they don’t immediately think of world travel but, as an industry leader, we have been able to advise and support utilities in countries around the world."
Despite his retirement, Kenny isn’t ready to hang up his hi-vis and hardhat just yet, and plans to continue sharing his expertise with others at home and abroad.
Outside of work, Kenny will continue as a musician at his local church, carry on as a trustee of a local care home and, once the winter has receded, be out on the road bike cycling around Scotland’s countryside.
Scottish Water provides vital water and waste water services, essential to daily life, to 2.57m households and 152,916 business premises across Scotland.
Every day they deliver 1.53bn litres of clear, fresh drinking water – enough to fill over 610 Olympic swimming pools.
They also take away and treat 1.08 billion litres of waste water which they treat, recover resources from and return safely to help protect the environment across Scotland – every day of the year.
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