People

People

Uplands has five hands-on directors with more years in the industry than we care to admit to.

What unites us is a passion for great construction. It’s not just about the practices we use and our ability to deliver consistently to high standards. It’s about the 80 or so talented staff who work with and support us daily, some of whom have been with us from the very start.

Kevin Feldman

Kevin Feldman
Chairman

MCIOB
Chartered Construction Manager
MRICS
MIoD

Following a number of successful years as MD Kevin took up the role as Chairman in 2021 supporting the business in its next phase of development.

His experience in the construction industry is considerable. A former board member of the UK and Ireland M+W Zander group business units, and MD of the associated Facilities Management businesses, he is adept at developing relationships and winning contracts.

From UK supermarket chains and leisure operators, to hospitals, manufacturing plants and warehouses as well as large development companies and international businesses, Kevin’s understanding of different sectors is extensive, ensuring that client goals can be met.

Mike Barker

Mike Barker
Managing Director

BSc (Hons) Construction Management
MCIOB
Chartered Construction Manager
MIoD

Mike took over the role of MD in 2021, heading up the management team day to day and ensuring continued stability throughout the business.

Mike has a reputation for building strong working relationships with colleagues, clients and supply chain partners. He is enthusiastic, collaborative and enjoys building strong teams. His hands-on approach, attention to detail and emphasis on regular, clear communications, ensure that deadlines are met and projects delivered to an exceptionally high standard.

Mike has extensive experience undertaking roles that specialise in delivering projects within challenging, live environments. Whatever the sector, retail to semi-conductor facilities, he is committed to ensuring each client can continue with their daily operations throughout the construction phase.

Martin Hall

Martin Hall
Commercial Director

BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying
MRICS
MIoD

Martin heads up our commercial team, ensuring consistency of delivery for all of Uplands clients. From refurbishments and extensions to conversions and remodelling, he is particularly experienced in the retail arena, working for high profile names including M&S, Morrisons, ASDA, and Tesco.

Martin brings a structured approach to client account management and is highly focused on reducing risk and delivering good value for our clients.

Alastair Shiner

Alastair Shiner
Director

NEBOSH General Certificate

Alastair’s construction career spans three decades with experience in a variety of sectors and across many disciplines, cutting his teeth in the 1990s on Network Rail contracts, office refits as well as general shopfitting projects.

A committed and dedicated member of the Uplands team, Alastair keeps a keen eye on safety, is responsible for the company’s HR as well as the Measured Term Contract (MTC) held with ASDA.

Jack Rake

Jack Rake
Director

MCIOB
Chartered Construction Manager
MIoD
NEBOSH General Certificate

A true people person, Jack is Uplands’ youngest director where his enthusiasm is coupled with a true understanding of the challenges that clients face.

Highly driven and committed, he has a wealth of experience in construction, particularly retail having delivered large-scale projects for Tesco supermarkets. At Uplands he manages the nationwide delivery of framework partnerships for a variety of clients and has played a key role in strategic business development.

From new builds to refurbishments, extensions to shell handovers, on the high street or in live stores, he has built up strong working relationships and is well respected for his ability to lead teams.

James Green

James Green
Operations Manager

James is a fine example of Uplands’ home-grown talent as his now impressive career began when the business was set up in 2002. Not only is he our longest serving employee, he has played a leading role in the growth of the company by building on client relationships and bringing about repeat as well as new business, often bespoke and of an unusual nature. Such organic growth demonstrates James’ leadership skills where he is as comfortable and adept at dealing with clients as he is with contractors.

James has led an eclectic mix of projects including live retail, shell fit-outs and conversions and with budgets of £10k to over £5million on multiple sites nationwide. He is determined and relishes a challenge, with a number of his projects attracting nominations for national awards including the National Grid Didcot Temporary Building in the Supply Chain Excellence awards where it was pitched against BT and Virgin Media among others.

Tom Moody

Tom Moody
Operations Manager

HNC Construction Management

Resourceful and flexible are some of Tom’s key attributes. These, coupled with a decidedly forward thinking attitude, explain why he is so well liked both personally and professionally.

Tom has considerable practical delivery experience and is also well versed and experienced in live working environments having spent many years in the retail construction sector. His background in traditional construction methods gives him a broad set of skills and knowledge.

Tom has played a key role in successfully developing some of Uplands’ new client accounts, working on new formats and brands to create value engineered specifications for fast-paced Client expansion programmes.

Matt Singlehurst

Matt Singlehurst
Contracts Manager

Matt boasts over 20 years’ project management experience within the construction industry, applying these skills and expertise to his role as Contracts Manager.

Effective communication sits at the core of his approach through all stages of a contract, carefully assessing client needs in order to deliver excellent service and produce great results.

A team player, he is adept at monitoring compliance as well as project change control, and consistently carries out Uplands’ employee and project appraisals.

Mark Dickinson

Mark Dickinson
Contracts Manager

Mark has been a valued member of the Uplands team since 2007, consistently delivering to a high level and receiving excellent client feedback on his quality focused approach and attention to detail. This was particularly true when as the Account Manager on the our extensive Center Parcs projects, his delivery consistently received high client praise.

Mark has extensive experience in planning and executing projects within a variety of live working environments. Training and working as a carpenter in the early years of his career has had a positive impact on his success, applying this background knowledge and understanding of design and construction to all projects.

Dale Simpkins

Dale Simpkins
Contracts Manager

Dale boasts over 20 years in the construction industry. At Uplands he is particularly comfortable working on live sites making sure it’s business as usual for the client that needs to operate smoothly throughout the build process.

Dale’s strong communication skills have helped him build and sustain great relationships with clients where as part of their delivery team he manages expectations and pushes through to the point of successful completion, applying his considerable understanding and experience to ensure best practices are used.

Ed Hazell

Ed Hazell
Contracts Manager

BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying and Commercial Management

Specialising in retail fit-out and refurbishment, for the last decade Ed has worked extensively in this sector for a variety of blue-chip retail clients. As commercial lead on our ASDA account, Ed manages a team of quantity surveyors servicing a vast array of workstreams – ranging from large scale refurbishment contracts to smaller planned maintenance schemes.

He prides himself on being a good communicator where his focus is on forging strong relationships both at client level and also internally within Uplands. By personally maintaining key client contacts, Ed’s role extends to project delivery and securing workload.

George Sarudis

George Sarudis
Pre Construction Manager

BSC (Hons) Architectural Design Technology

With over 15 years’ industry experience, George brings a wealth of expertise to construction projects. A highly valued member of the team, he has delivered the pre-development and planning components across the whole portfolio of Uplands’ key accounts.

George is a talented design coordinator and accomplished in the most technically challenging, high value projects. Through his proactive and personable approach, he develops strong, long lasting relationships with clients. His attention to detail ensures delivery to the high standards now synonymous to the Uplands name. His communication and facilitation skills are also impressive as is his strategic mindset which delivers reduced project costs and durations, so adds value for clients.

Kevin Young

Kevin Young
Senior Estimator

BTEC Certificate (HND) in Building Studies

Kevin’s impressive 35-year construction industry career began as a Trainee QS and developed into cost planning and estimating roles for both regional and national contractors across the South West.

His eye for detail and extensive knowledge of construction costs help to produce accurate cost plans and budgets for a variety of projects, often from a limited brief. From fit-outs, refurbishments and new builds, Kevin is highly adept at producing competitive tenders and Bills of Quantities, identifying risks and opportunities in the process to improve competitiveness.

When needed, he provides Uplands’ teams with valuable support when faced with commercial issues on live projects.

Craig Morris

Craig Morris
Commercial Manager

BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying

Craig joined the company in 2008 as a Senior QS working on retail schemes and to focus on a number of accounts.

Based at our Midlands office, he is a self-motivated individual who enjoys the most challenging of roles within the construction environment. He has a value driven focus to ensure our clients are well informed of the financial position throughout a project and works well with all project team members. Given his extensive main contractor background of new build, refurbishment and civil engineering projects, he is best placed to advise and mediate on a wide variety of schemes.

Chris Snelling

Chris Snelling
Senior Quantity Surveyor

BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying

Chris began his career in the construction industry in 2001, quickly advancing to the position of Senior QS dealing with all financial matters on varying schemes, from refurbishments to high value new build projects.

He thrives on building effective and successful working relationships with clients and colleagues alike and is a superb motivator. Chris firmly believes that a positive attitude helps him deal with the fast-paced environment of retail where he makes sure that commercial processes run smoothly and professionally, keeping calm at all times. Great communication skills are integral to Chris’s success.

Chris Bellamy

Chris Bellamy
Senior Quantity Surveyor

BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying

Chris brings a wealth of knowledge and hands-on expertise to the Uplands team given his experience working within the construction industry spans over 25 years.

He has worked for small family-owned businesses as well as multi-national corporations, with responsibility for budgets of a few thousand pounds up to many millions.

Chris thrives on delivering schemes for the benefit of all, building excellent client relationships in the process. Always happy to help, he is highly regarded by all who work with or alongside him.

Mark O'Dowd

Mark O’Dowd
Environmental, Health and Safety Manager

NEBOSH Construction Certificate
NEBOSH Health & Wellbeing Certificate
ISO Auditor
Tech IOSH

Mark is a real people person which goes someway to explain his drive for positive Health, Safety & Wellbeing. Compassionate and empathetic, he understands and appreciates the challenges within construction, advising on ‘best in class’ H&S, always focused on expectations as well as our responsibilities to clients.

Highly motivated and committed, he has over 23 years’ experience in construction working on complex and high-risk projects. Included in Mark’s remit is to cultivate a positive H&S culture. He implements day to day activities across the whole company, preparing our H&S strategy and advising the Board of Directors on continuous improvement.

He brings a wealth of practical experience, understands the difference between management and leadership, and has the confidence to challenge and bring about change at all levels.

Lisa Mash

Lisa Gibson
Health, Safety and Wellbeing Advisor

NEBOSH Construction Certificate
NEBOSH Health & Wellbeing Certificate
ISO Auditor
Tech IOSH

Lisa is Uplands’ wellbeing and mental health ambassador, providing guidance, advice and support on all aspects of mental health. From public sector to independent, she has worked on a wide variety of projects of all sizes and levels of complexity.

Lisa’s career began in Health & Safety Management where from high profile commercial refurbishments, concrete and steel frame constructions, to major earth works, she has diligently carried out audits and inspections. Proactive and supportive, Lisa has developed strong working relationships with site teams and subcontractors alike.