As our friend and colleague Tim Setterfield retires after more than 42 years of service, it’s worth pausing to recognise just how extraordinary that sentence really is.
Tim joined us in 1984, still a teenager, working as a laboratory technician on secondment from the University of Surrey. This was before UoSat-2 launched, and even before Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd was formally incorporated in 1985. In other words, Tim was already part of the story when SSTL was still, quite literally, a university department finding its feet.
Over the decades that followed, Tim went on to hold a remarkable range of leadership roles across the business. He led our procurement function for many years, before becoming Manufacturing Manager, Engineering General Manager and Head of Production. For the past five years, he has been at the helm of our Composites Manufacturing Facility in Bordon, quietly ensuring that critical capabilities continued to be delivered with the quality and professionalism SSTL is known for. (See recent festive pic below of Tim with some of his colleagues from Bordon.)
Across our 40+ year history, SSTL has employed around 2,500 people. Of those, only two were still with the company from the moment of incorporation in 1985 (and even before): Tim, and our founder and Chairman Sir Martin Sweeting. That fact alone places Tim in a very small, very special group - not just witnesses to our history, but active shapers of it.
When reflecting on his time at SSTL, Tim has been clear that there are simply too many colleagues among those 2,500 to name individually - a telling reflection of just how many people he has worked alongside, supported and influenced. That said, he is keen to acknowledge a few who played particularly important roles early on: Harold Benn, one of SSTL’s first Commercial Managers and an early mentor, as well as Jeff Ward, one of the company’s early CEOs and of course Sir Martin himself. (Jeff, Martin & Tim are pictured below.)
Companies are often described as collections of people united in a common economic or industrial pursuit. It’s a sound definition - but it only really comes alive when you look at individuals like Tim. His career spans eras, programmes, restructures, successes, setbacks, technologies and generations of colleagues. Through all of it, he remained a constant presence: practical, committed, and deeply embedded in how SSTL actually works.
As Tim steps into retirement, we salute him with genuine gratitude - not just for the roles he held, but for the continuity, institutional memory and quiet leadership he brought with him every day.
We wish him all the very best for the years ahead… and we will not forget his contribution to SSTL.
