As a former member of the armed forces Mark Goggs found it hard to find work after life in the Army, even though he had good engineering skills and qualifications
Fearing he may struggle to keep up his mortgage repayments he decided to start up his own plastering business in order to survive. Over the next few years he built up his skills and now offers a range of services such as landscaping tiling, plastering, painting and decorating.
Starting a business initially was a daunting task so he approached Five Lamps for help, advice and guidance on starting up a business and becoming self-employed. Over the next few months Mark worked with a number of the Five Lamps team attending free business workshops and working one to one on his Business Plan.
In early 2010 he was ready to start out and having secured some funding, start trading as a plasterer steadily building up his customer base. 3 years on he has found that most of his work is now repeat custom or word of mouth recommendations.
Thornaby Plasterer Mark has always been interested in helping with other service initiatives, so in August 2012 an opportunity came along to take part in a TV program called Construction Squad (Operation Home Front), a Channel 5 program aimed at demonstrating the skills and abilities that ex-servicemen have to offer when they leave the Armed Forces.
Mark was initially tasked to build a 4ft disability access ramp from decking materials for a scout hut in Oxford. On arrival at the site the brief had changed in that a 20 meter ramp had to be made out of decking material. The time limit was two and a half days. A 40 hour working week was crammed into 2.5 days with just 12 hours rest, but the result and the looks on the scouts faces were worth every minute spent on the project.
After this initial project the Channel5 team were so happy with his work that he was invited back to help out with a further 3 projects, unfortunately due to work commitments he had to decline 1 of the projects.
The first project was aired on Channel 5 on Friday 30 August 2013 and is for a North East charity in Newcastle called Pathways 4 All. The second project Mark was involved in was based in Preston, rebuilding gardens for ex-service men suffering disability and post-traumatic stress, to aid in their recuperation. The third project was based in Oxford where a Scout hut (HQ) was demolished and rebuilt in just 5 days.
To find out more visit his website www.prestigeplasteringworld.co.uk or look up Prestige Plastering on facebook.