The Sports Turf Research Insitute’s (STRI) Chief Executive, Dr Gordon McKillop, has announced his intention to retire at Easter in 2016.

Gordon has held the position since July 2000 having joined the Institute from, what was then, the Central Science Laboratory (CSL), a DEFRA Agency.

During the 1990s, whilst still at CSL, Gordon worked closely with STRI on a number of projects and so, when the vacancy for a new Chief Executive was announced, he decided to apply. He is very keen on sport and to combine science with sport in a business context appeared to be the dream job, which he says it has turned out to be. He says he considers himself to have been incredibly lucky to have been able to manage a business such as STRI, to have been behind the scenes of many sporting events at local, national and international levels and to have worked as part of a dedicated, knowledgeable and incredibly enthusiastic team.

“When I started, I told the interview panel that I had three aims for the business: to develop more scientifically and technically based services, to make the business more commercially orientated and to raise the STRI brand to an international level. I am pleased to look back and know I have taken the business some way down each of these three roads.”

Gordon will be succeeded by Mark Godfrey, who has been with STRI for 10 years and is currently our Financial Director and Managing Director of STRI in Australia; he will return from Australia in December 2015. This internal succession, along with similar succession plans for Australia, will ensure there will be smooth handovers throughout the next nine months.

Mark Godfrey and the other STRI Directors will continue developing and delivering the current business strategy to ensure STRI's on-going success into the future.