Alistair Houghton meets BOB WILLIAMS, chief executive of Chester, Ellesmere Port and North Wales Chamber of Commerce

THE worlds of naval warfare and Cheshire business may seem very different, but former Royal Navy commodore Bob Williams says there are more similarities than you might think.

Williams is today chief executive of the Chester, Ellesmere Port and North Wales Chamber of Commerce, which represents businesses from Anglesey to the Mancunian frontier.

But, before joining the front line of the local business world he enjoyed a 37-year career in the Royal Navy, serving in the Falklands War and commanding a ship during the first Gulf War.

Williams, who was also director-general of Liverpool’s International Cotton Association, is now helping local businesses weather the recession and is aiming to double the chamber’s membership.

He left the military in 1998 and says he swiftly learned that, jargon aside, planning skills are just as important in business as at sea.

“In business, the first thing I’d ask you to show me would be the business plan,” he said. “What are your objectives? Do you have a timescale? How will you monitor progress? In military terms, do you need reinforcements?

“When I first started, I had to get rid of the military jargon that was part of my language and embrace business terminology, otherwise people would wonder what I was trying to say.

“But the principles are exactly the same.”

Williams’s arrival in Chester last year was a return to his Cheshire roots. He grew up in Knutsford before joining the Navy after his A-levels.

Williams’s naval career has taken him around the globe many times. After serving aboard HMS Glasgow in the Falklands War and staying in the South Atlantic aboard HMS Birmingham, the first ship he commanded as captain was the guided missile destroyer HMS Edinburgh – itself a brand new ship straight from Cammell Laird, in Birkenhead.

“It was very exciting,” he said. “It’s like a new car. You open the door and it smells differently.”

Williams commanded a ship as part of the naval taskforce in the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops were expelled from Kuwait. He was one of the first to land in the emirate once the Iraqis had left.

“All the oilfields there were burning,” he said.

“There were cigarettes just finished burning in the ashtrays. The place was deserted.”

Returning from the Gulf, Williams became naval private secretary to the Chief of Defence Staff, travelling the world promoting British interests.

His final military role was as UK director of operations at the joint armed forces headquarters in Northwood. Operations under his watch included the UK response to the volcanic eruption on Montserrat, co-ordinating the RAF and naval rescue missions to the stricken Caribbean island.

Williams’s international experience made him invaluable to the International Cotton Association, where he spent seven years from 1998 travelling abroad on behalf of the industry.

“Uzbekistan was the first country I’d ever visited in my life without a coastline,” he smiled.

Williams left the association in 2005 and returned to his home in Scotland to work with a business association in Dumfries and Galloway.

But, in 2008, he heard about the Chester vacancy and seized the opportunity to return to his roots.

Williams runs the Chamber’s day-to-day operations on behalf of its board, currently chaired by John Newton-Jones.

The chamber, along with those in Liverpool and St Helens, is a member of the British Chambers of Commerce network and works closely with that organisation’s London policy team.

Williams, whose family home is still in Scotland but who spends the week in Cheshire, wants to more than double the chamber’s membership by the end of this year.

The chamber is also trying to extend its reach into North Wales and win more members there. It now markets itself to its Welsh members as North Wales Chamber – sticking to West Cheshire and Chester Chamber in this region – to show it is not simply Chester-centric.

He said: “Our starting point is 550 members. I’m looking for 1,200 by December, 2009.

“I’m a Navy man. If you don’t have a target, you don’t know where you’re going. I know where I’m going and I’ll give it my best endeavour.”

Times are tough for Williams’s members, from rural Cheshire to industrial Ellesmere Port. Despite the gloom, however, Williams says he is urging them to think positively and seize what new opportunities they can.

“Members think there are opportunities, but they’ve got a lack of customers,” he said.

“People are looking at what they do to make sure they do it in the most economical way possible, and are making increasing efforts to find new markets. With the pound being as low as it is, there’s never been a better moment to look at your exports. This is how entrepreneurs boom. They’re born out of adversity.”

The chamber hosts weekly Business Growth Clubs across its patch to encourage members to do business with each other.

“I measure the success of the club by the decibel level in the room, which I have to say is quite high,” said Williams. “That means people are talking to each other.”

Williams, who is married with one grown-up daughter, is also keen to get young people interested in business and has worked closely with Isle of Wight-based organisation, Young Chamber.

He and his colleagues are visiting schools and colleges to encourage students to act on their entrepreneurial instincts and set up businesses in schools. One notable success at Upton High School, in Chester, sets rugby fan Williams smiling.

“The school had a Saturday rugby competition,” he said.

“We encouraged them to find money to buy Mars Bars, then they sold them to all the starving people watching the matches. They made a small profit and used that to buy more stock.

“They’re getting involved in entrepreneurial activity in a very gentle way.

“If this takes off, my ambition is ultimately to seek the support of government and academia to introduce in colleges and universities a foundation degree in business studies.”

alistairhoughton