Keith is originally from Anglesey where he gained his love of the sea and the mountains. He joined the Royal Navy from school and qualified as an operational submariner and nuclear engineer.
After his time underwater, Keith specialised in engineering support, major procurement projects, risk management and safety, with a particular focus on the nuclear and high hazard aspects.
Keith is now Technical Director for an Agency of the Ministry of Defence involved in all aspects of support for the UK submarine force.
He is also the Head of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors and a patron of the Holyhead Maritime Museum.
Keith has a grown-up family and lives in Worcestershire with his wife. He has recently fulfilled an ambition to acquire an American Island Packet, with Bermudan Cutter rig, to continue his passion for sailing.
Mark has specialised in the health and social care sector having developed a model of specialist therapeutic care provision to meet the needs of children and younger adults with learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorders and those who have experienced trauma and abuse. He runs several residential care homes and supported living services in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire.
Mark has a real passion for developing teams and provides management consultancy, leadership training and mentoring for aspiring leaders; and he has brought this enthusiasm to SARA at a significant time in our history.
Mark joined the Beachley station in 2008 and has, at one time or another, been an active participant in each of SARA’s disciplines: Lifeboat Coxswain, Land Search, Rope Rescue and Swift Water Technician, Casualty Carer and Search Controller. Mark became the Chief Executive Officer in 2018 having been Deputy since 2012.
Mark is also RYA Advanced Powerboat Instructor and Rescue 3 Rope Rescue instructor.
The rest of Mark’s time is devoted to training for an IronMan Triathlon and his very patient and understanding wife and two children.
Chris joined SARA in 2025 as CFO. He had a 20-year career in banking and corporate finance before joining a manufacturing client in 2014, originally as Group Finance Director and subsequently as Group Managing Director, a position he retired from in 2024.
Those experiences have provided Chris with significant experience of helping organisations to evolve financial management systems, structures and reporting at all levels. They have also given Chris experience of building teams and developing a significant level of commercial pragmatism to financial issues.
Critical to success is managing the finances in a prudent and compliant manner whilst focussing on forecasting / predicting performance to ensure organisations remain resilient whilst investing for ongoing success.
Originally from Swansea, Chris has lived in the Chepstow area for the last 25 years with his wife (Vicki). They have two grown up children and have recently completed a house renovation which inevitably absorbed a lot more time and energy than was originally anticipated!!
He has a keen interest in most sports / outdoor activities although he is very much more of an enthusiast rather than expert at any – as his golf handicap will attest!
Ian has been a senior HR practitioner for a little over 40 years and in that time has held positions in a wide cross section of organisations ranging from commercial businesses, not-for-profit concerns, and a local authority.
The roles he has undertaken have been as equally varied, from consulting and generalist HR positions through to subject matter expert assignments focussing on HR policy and strategy development, organisational effectiveness and reward programmes.
Ian was born in Gloucestershire and has a strong affiliation to the county. After many years away he has recently settled in Lydney with his partner to be closer to their family and friends.
Now retired from full-time employment Ian busies himself as an impulsive gardener, a thoughtful cook casual motorcyclist and reluctant mechanic.
Judith spent much of her career in marketing, principally in the hotel and tourism sectors.
She held senior marketing positions for a number of well-known hotel chains and was also a director of Tourism South East and of the Tourism Society. Subsequently she set up a successful management and marketing consultancy for the industry, which she operated for 15 years, advising on strategy for major international hotel companies and tourist boards.
After a career break, she worked for Public Health England co-ordinating exercises for the emergency services and NHS in rapid joint response to large scale emergencies such as pandemics, flooding, and terrorism.
Judith has been a sailor for most of her adult life and is a qualified day skipper.
Now enjoying a quiet retirement with her husband, she lives in the Quantock Hills where she is a trustee of the village almshouses, serves on the committee of the gardening club and volunteers in the community shop.
Born in Swansea, Gareth is a qualified accountant with 25 years experience in finance and technology.
Gareth has held financial leadership positions at number of well-known, established international businesses, including Morgan Stanley and Amazon. Most recently, he was Head of Commerical Finance at CurrencyCloud – a start-up/scale-up FinTech firm – and played a key role in managing the sale of that firm to Visa. He currently works in a senior finance role at Visa, following the acquisition of CurrencyCloud, where he has led on the post-merger acquisition, and the roll-out of several new products.
Gareth lives with his wife, Ally, their two sons (Conor, 12, and Aidan, 10) and a new puppy in Surrey where they have been for the past 15 years, whilst working in London. During his spare time, Gareth enjoys spending time on his sailing boat on the Cleddau in Pembrokeshire and is a frequent visitor at the Griffin pub, Dale over the summer months. He is also learning to wing foil – a process which currently sees him spending more time in the water than on it!
Shaun is a successful businessman who has spent his entire working life within the retail motor industry. His experience has taught him a lot about people and process for which the standout learning has been teamwork. A fervent believer that good teams are more than the sum of their parts he brought that commitment to SARA when he joined nearly five years ago.
Now basking in semi-retirement, Shaun still enjoys involvement with the motor trade by helping to train new staff with a wide number of affiliated organisations.
An Operational Helm based at the Sharpness station he finds himself constantly humbled and delighted in equal measure at the bonds of friendship, support and professionalism that all the members of SARA display and, as the organisation approaches its 50th year of operation, is looking forward to navigating the organisation into the next half century.
Shaun has been happily married for 28 years and firmly believes that, like many members of SARA, he could not achieve anything without the mutual help and support that this brings. He tries to get out on the water in his own boat as often as possible and when that’s not possible he plays golf (badly) and cooks (rather well).
