50 years' experience
Phil Champion, the patriarch of Denton-Powell, started as an apprentice welder fabricator in a factory that manufactured road surfacing machinery when he was 15 years old.
After becoming competent in various different skills, he left to set up his own metal fabrication company that manufactured farm machinery and ornamental ironwork.
The business rapidly expanded when Phil worked with the civil engineering division of Balfour Beatty, making railings and road bridge expansion joints, welding miles of steel piles into the ground and constantly repairing earthmoving and excavation machinery for Kelston Sparkes.
The business continued to grow when it also started to manufacture metal staircases, mezzanine floors and structural steelwork - the genesis of the family-run business that still thrives to this day.