I joined the local government-run Veterinary Investigation Centre in Worcester from school as an assistant scientific officer and studied part-time for an HNC in Veterinary Microbiology.  I left to study full-time for an MI Biol in Veterinary Microbiology and subsequently joined Philip Porter's Immunology group at Unilever Research working on the pig Escherichia coli weaning scour vaccine Intagen.

Later I joined Harry Smith's microbiology faculty at Birmingham University, working on an MRC-funded PhD studying the mechanisms used by the obligate intracellular bacterium Chlamydia to enter cells, later collaborating with a medical team at Queen Elizabeth Hospital looking at the antigens involved in Reiter's syndrome.  I also worked on Helicobacter pylori growth requirements and the cryptic viable but non-cultivable state.

I joined Microbial Developments Ltd in Malvern in 1995, working on a Salmonella vaccine project in collaboration with Imperial College London.  The competitive exclusion product Aviguard was just taking off and Bayer AG bought the company not long after I joined.  I worked on developing a defined Campylobacter competitive exclusion product and was then heavily involved in Bayer's attempt to get Aviguard registered in the USA.

After Lallemand took over the company I worked with teams in Toulouse and Milwaukee on the transfer and optimisation of their direct feed microbial and silage bacteria to the Malvern facility.