In this year’s Railway Division Chairman's address, Noel Travers reviews his career both within and outside of engineering environments, and considers why he made the choices he did. Noel will discuss diversity within the engineering environment, highlighting the benefits of a diverse workforce, and considers how this may be improved. He will also cover why it is critical to retain talent in engineering. Throughout his career Noel has described himself, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as “not a very good engineer”. This is because the roles of the stereotypical engineer are not where his strengths lie. His presentation will highlight that all the success he has had throughout his career is very much because he is an engineer. In his address, Noel argues that if the industry were to shine a spotlight on the engineers that have succeeded in non-engineering jobs because they are good engineers, then it would open up to more diverse pool of talent. This in turn would retain engineers (such as Noel himself) in the profession, and battle the challenge of many engineers feeling they need to move out of the profession to have career success, because they think they are, in fact, “not a very good engineer”. Noel joined British Rail in 1988 as a Management Trainee, and was sponsored whilst undertaking his Mechanical Engineering degree at Loughborough University. After graduating with a BEng in 1992, Noel completed his structured training and then held a number of depot-based engineering management jobs before eventually becoming T&RS Engineer (initially Assistant) for Freightliner following BR’s privatisation in 1995. During this period, Noel also completed an MSc in Rail Systems Engineering from Sheffield University. In 2000, Noel entered the world of finance and banking with GATX Capital initially and then Royal Bank of Scotland, working in asset finance. Noel returned to the railway in 2008 with Bombardier Transportation, initially as Sales Director, before becoming VP Project Management and eventually in 2014, Interim MD and Chairman of Bombardier UK. In 2016, Noel joined Unipart Rail as MD, adding responsibility for Unipart Manufacturing in 2019. Noel joined Xrail Group as MD in 2021, and now also undertakes some part time management consultancy.