After Sales Bowling Night Out

This months Fun Committee was organised by After Sales, and so a trip to Hollywood bowl for drinks and a game or two followed. Then it was on to Flaming Dragon all-you-can-eat oriental cuisine. 

The top bowlers who won a game each over the 2 games were Jami Beech, Steve Bedford, Karen Bedford and Lee Jeffries. Shot of the match coming from Steve Bedford with a right hand straight swinging under leg haymaker spin ball (yep, he invented it). Thanks to all for a great night!

UK Customer Satisfaction Awards 2014

Last Tuesday Nancy and Sam traveled to London to represent Martek at the Institute of Customer Services UK Customer Satisfaction Awards, an annual event celebrating the success of companies excelling at providing customer service.

As award finalists, the Martek representatives were invited to a pre-award show drinks reception where they met Joanne Causon, CEO of the ICS and chatted about the plans Martek have to excel in Customer Service.

After a delicious three course dinner, the awards commenced and Sam and Nancy waited to see whether Martek would take the trophy for the award for Employee Engagement Strategy.

Up against a few well known others such as Capita and Damart, the standard was high.

Martek did not take home the award this year, but did receive a mention as one of 20 new organisations this year to achieve ServiceMark for the first time in 2013. Well done Martek!!

Our aim is to make 2014 the year where Legendary Customer Experience is what we do at Martek, day in, day out.

5 top tips for landing a job with Martek Marine

Is Martek the right company for you?

Martek operates a work hard, play hard culture with employees reaping the rewards of a high performance and a NO EXCUSES culture with team building activities such as Doncaster Races and Thornbridge Outdoors. 

Martek are committed to their employees and customers alike, and have recently been awarded Investors in People Gold Award, and Institute of Customer Service ‘ServiceMark’ award. 

Stay alert

Martek are looking for new talent to join their team all the time as the company expands, with the latest career vacancies listed on our website and LinkedIn page. Martek is a great place to work, with various benefits, so keep checking back to the careers section of the website, as we’re always adding new opportunities. 

Find out which role is right for you

We have various departments within our UK and Singapore based offices requiring a variety of different skill sets. Whether your talents lie in finance or production, make sure you read the job description carefully to ensure you are qualified and committed to the role. 

Make your application WOW us

Ensure you understand the job role before applying. If you have any questions, you can email the hiring manager before submitting your CV and covering letter. Martek are looking for people to complement their culture, so think outside the box, and write a covering letter that will WOW us from the very beginning of your application. 

Research, research, research! 

Once you’ve nailed the application process, and have been invited for interview, make sure you know who Martek are, and what we stand for. That means educating yourself on Martek Marine products and the maritime industry, as well as keeping up to date with company news on Twitter and Facebook. 

Lastly - good luck! 

Martek to enter Team for Winter Olympics in Sochi City

Hot off The Press!!!!

Martek to enter Team for Winter Olympics in Sochi City

After the recent Curling Event at Ice Sheffield a new breed of Curlers have immerged.

"Too Much Weetabix" Jeffries

"Baby Faced Assassin" Ryan Bullock

Jami "Trigger" Beech

Amy "Halfway" Lambert

Steve "Angry Kid" Lapthorne

Man of the Match has to be Steven Bedford for his wonderful rendition of Bambi on Ice...

There was no surprises in the wining Team had to be Sales!!!!!

Martek get nominated for an Institute of Customer Service award!

We’re pleased to announce that Martek Marine have been shortlisted for an Institute of Customer Service award!

The UK Customer Satisfaction Awards recognises businesses that are committed to WOWing their customers at every contact, from the initial enquiry, to delivering the goods efficiently.

Martek held a raffle draw to determine who would represent the company at the Lancaster London Hotel in the capital, and the lucky winners came up as Executive Assistant Sam Sargent, and Nancy Greaves from the Marketing team. Give a good speech, ladies!

Hopefully we have impressed the judges enough to win the Objective HR Employee Engagement Strategy of the Year and we can head back to South Yorkshire ready to tackle the Institute of Customer Service Qualification!

‘Legendary Customer Service’ meet ‘ICS Qualifications’

Martek Marine have recently seen the launch of ‘The Legends’ project! The overall aim of the project? To create Legendary Customer Service for you, our customers.

Our aim is to provide you with a memorable experience at every point of contact with Martek and be the best in the industry at serving your needs.

The qualifications that we are undertaking with the Institute of Customer Service let us recognise that we are giving you legendary customer service. All our customer facing employees have just stated on the pathway towards these qualifications, , and we hope to complete this within the next quarter. These recognised awards will complement their day-to-day jobs and will also stay with them throughout their career.

We’ll report on our employees progress throughout this qualification, so keep watching this space!

Christmas at Martek

The office is covered in tinsel, festive jumpers are once again making an appearance, and we’ve just about recovered from the Christmas Party at the weekend. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

On Friday we supported ‘Save the Children’ as we took part in Christmas Jumper Day. The global charity work to make the world a better place for our children, as ‘No Child is Born to Die’. Their goals are to stop child hunger, protect their wellbeing and provide education for all. We hope we've helped them on their way. Keep up the good work @savethechildren!

Saturday was a time to glam up and dig out the party dresses as we headed to Ponds Forge’s Masquerade Ball. The tradition of the Masquerade Ball was to provide anonymity to a 17^th century Europe heavily influenced by the class divides in societies.

Following welcome drinks and a traditional Christmas dinner, The English Gentlemen took to the stage to blast out a few party hits. Here are a few photos from the night for you to enjoy! 

Martek gets funny for charity

Eight South Yorkshire professionals took to the stage last week to do their bit for local cancer charity, Western Park.

In support of Director Steve Coulson, who bravely tried his hand at stand-up comedy, the whole Martek gang headed to Sheffield City Hall for Funny Business. The event was first run last year very successfully, and was therefore repeated this year, but with the aim of raising even more for the good cause!!

After a hilariously funny first half, Steve battled his nerves and brought his script to stage shortly after the interval, with a roaring cheer from the Martek Groupies.

With a script involving his two year old daughter and new born son, we were expecting hilarious tales of sibling rivalry and parent bribery – we weren't disappointed!

After a comical 10 minutes, Steve’s time on stage drew to a close, with big cheers from the supportive audience.

Unfortunately, after seeing all 8 contestants, it was clear it was going to be a tight competition, but the Martek business man managed to grab 3^rd place, and in the process raised well over £1,000 for Weston Park Cancer Charity.

The whole night was a brilliant success for most – but a few shouldn't quit their day jobs just yet!! Tina Harrison from the charity announced the night was well on target to raising £30,000! 

Martek achieves ICS ServiceMark Accreditation

Martek Marine are pleased to announce that we have been awarded the Institute of Customer Service ServiceMark Accreditation.

To gain the recognition of a company committed to customer service, we invited in an assessor from the ICS to look at our core values, how we assist customers at every step of the enquiry process, and our aims for the future.

The assessor had the chance to gain the views of employees from all departments, including marketing, sales, operations and finance.

The award was presented to CEO Paul Luen at our quarterly company meeting this month.

Paul exclaimed “I am delighted to have received the ServiceMark award from the ICS. It is recognition of the work Martek’s employees put in every day to ensure all our customers receive the highest customer service from the moment of enquiry, right through to receiving their Martek product, and the service thereafter.”

If you have any comments regarding how we can further build on our ServiceMark customer service recognition, feel free to post a

comment below.

Martek grabs 3rd prize for 'Employer of the Year'

This week, Executive Assistants Sam Sargent and Erica Hadley were at the Grange City Hotel in London to represent Martek Marine as we were selected as a finalist for the 2013 Employer of the Year award, in the Office Show by Hays Recruiting Experts.

The black tie event was a great chance to meet people within the secretarial and PA field, as well as celebrate our achievements as a company.

The time came to present the awards, and we were thrilled to accept 3^rd place for employee of the year!

After the delicious three course meal, we had a chance to dance to disco classics, and mix our own songs on the decks. 

The award now takes pride of place in our Rotherham Headquarters. 

Martek Marine attend IMPA 2013

Last week was the annual International Marine and PurchasingAssociation Exhibition in London, and Martek were proud to attend once again.

Regional Sales managers Gary Rees and Ryan Bullock attended the event with Erica Hadley, Executive Assistant to the Sales Director.

Ryan commented “It was great to meet up with our customers at the IMPA conference once again. Seeing everyone at the UK’s leading maritime event brought a vibrant atmosphere to the event, and I can’t wait to be back again next year!”

The Martek stand had demonstrations of the recently launched potable water testing kits DRINKSAFE™ and DRINKSAFE™ Max, as well as portable gas detection, gas tubes, and calibration gas.

Erica Hadley said “It was great to catch up with old faces and meet new customers at this busy exhibition. We’ve made some great connections over the two days in London and we look forward to keeping in touch throughout the year.”

If you missed the Martek stand at the exhibition, take a look at our products on our website, and be sure to say ‘hi’ next year!

Martek welcomes new starters on board as the maritime company continues to expand

June has been a busy month at both our UK and Singapore offices, as we welcomed on board new starters in across all departments.

As Martek Marine to grow, Stephen Lapthorne has joined the team as our Finance Director. An accountant by profession, Steve has developed his career working in other successful privately-owned business around Yorkshire, as well as a 4 year period in an IT consultancy in New York.

Telesales Executive Deon Jacobs, has many years’ experience in sales and business development roles. He also has experience in event organising and management.

Our Asia Pacific team has also been expanding as Queenie Jeow and Stacey Gan joined the sales team. Queenie joins our team with 10 years of working in sales and purchasing. She will now be part of Martek’s ever expanding Fastcalgas Sales Coordinator team.

Stacy is looking forward to a new challenge at Martek, having previously worked in telemarketing and face to face sales, most recently within the energy industry. We’re excited to welcome the super-energetic Stacy to our Singapore office.

Jack Marsh is our youngest new recruit as he joins us as a Business Administration Apprentice. He will gain experience in all sectors of Martek from sales and service to finance and marketing. He is hoping his apprenticeship enables him to gain a sound knowledge of all areas within the business, as he exclaims he is “very excited to be joining a company as successful as Martek.”

And our newest recruit to the team is Regional Sales Manager, Gary Rees. Gary has over 12 years of experience with international sales in electro-optics industry.

We are now looking to bring on-board various roles throughout our South Yorkshire headquarters, including Regional Sales Manager, Fastcalgas Coordinator and Engineering Manager.

If you’re remarkable and want to be a part of the ever expanding Martek team, visit the careers page of the website to apply for any of the above vacancies and see what other roles we’re recruiting for. 

Martek Marine expands into Russian offshore market

Maritime safety and environmental systems manufacturer Martek Marine has achieved a breakthrough first sale in Russia to national oil & gas explorer Gazflot. In another first, Martek’s calibration gases will be utilised on a pair of jack-up rigs in Yushno Sakhalin rather than on merchant vessels. Gazflot has a fleet of nine vessels including jack-up rigs, icebreakers and research ships. The Russian energy major has also placed orders for six of Martek’s Navgard BNWAS and a record breaking six figure system expansion contract.

The sale follows the crucial Type Approval of Martek’s Navgard by the Russian Register and the appointment of Ian Bennett, an experienced Russian speaking oil and gas industry executive as Martek’s regional sales manager.

Ian Bennett said:

“We’ve already seen a huge take-up in our systems aboard merchant vessels needing to meet the requirements of SOLAS Chapter V Regulation 19, but we’re also now seeing increasing interest from the offshore market. Approved by all the major classification societies, Martek’s Navgard is the easiest, quickest and lowest cost system to install.”

Navgard, which comes with a two-year warranty, uses real-time data logging, providing essential evidence in the event of an incident. Unlike some competitors that use simple key switches, Navgard requires a master password to disable, also noting when the system is switched on and off so that checks can be made to ensure it is being used continuously. When MV Karin Schepers grounded in 2009, the accident report noted that a BNWAS was present but had been switched off by crew. IMO regulations require all ships to fit a BNWAS before July 2015.

A Day at the Races

This month’s Fun Committee landed on the Sales Team’s shoulders to organise, so we ditched our usual weekends away from the gang and headed for a day out at Doncaster Races on the 1^st June.

The day was filled with us pretending to fit in with the crowd, awkwardly trying to figure out what the 7/1 odds meant, drinking prosecco and wolfing down the odd seafood platter.

The Martek team are amature gamblers at best, and most lived up to this on the day. However, Jami and Dave were feeling particularly lucky, and managed to finish with £200 and £430 profit! 

Nautical Friday in aid of Seafarers UK

The Martek team had a great day of dress up on Friday when we took part in raising money for Seafarers UK.

Our crew dug out their best pirate and sailor costumes, paying £2 for the privilege, and competed in the Nautical Friday Quiz.

We’re pleased to report we raised a total of £129 for a great UK charity, supporting seafarers and their families through times of difficulty and hardship.

Seafarers UK (King George’s Fund for Sailors) has been helping seafarers since 1917, growing to be the leading charity in the maritime field. The money raised will help maintain a reasonable quality of life to the crew and their families of the Merchant Navy, Fishing Fleets, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines. All money raised for the charity will help to provide accommodation, clothing and education for those in need. They aim to provide training to people of any age to prepare them for work or service at sea, promote safety at sea and efficiency and effectiveness of the maritime charitable sector.

After sending our best pirate jazz hands photo to @seafarers_UK, we were ecstatic to announce we won the #NauticalFriday best photo competition! We look forward to receiving our treasure! 

Martek Goes Outdoors

To celebrate Martek Marine achieving ‘Gold’ in the Investors in People award, last month the whole company took a day away from their desks to head to Thornbridge Outdoors, in Derbyshire.

The day was filled with whole company activities, including everyone laughing at Joe getting stuck in 3 hoola-hoops and running a ping pong ball down lengths of guttering to get it into a bucket – surprisingly harder than it sounds (we finally finished that task after several attempts)!

We then split off into 4 groups, allowing employees to work with people outside of their departments.

The day of adventure was filled with an apparent 4 mile bike ride (although we’re sure it was more like 8 miles!), abseiling off a viaduct, an Aerial Rope Course, a crawl through a marble mine, swinging through the trees on zip wires, a Jacob’s ladder and 10 meters of very difficult-to-climb netting – although Gary proved to be a pro!

The winning team (this is debatable  then received a £25 shopping voucher each and a few chocolate treats! Well done!

After a very exhausting day Team Martek reported back that 23% didn't enjoy the cycle and abseil and 7% didn't enjoy the Aerial Rope Course, but we just need to get them a little used to heights before the next visit!

However, 100% of employees agreed that they were given a chance to work with colleagues they didn't normally get a chance to work with, 97% thoroughly enjoyed the group tasks, and 90% said the event exceeded their expectations for the day!

We wound the day down with a BBQ in the sun and music from The Rogues of Rhythm. It’s fair to say there were a few sore heads in the morning! 

Martek Marine welcomes Heroes and Villains in the name of charity

The outfits certainly brightened up the working day!

On Friday the Martek team swapped their professional outfits for something more entertaining, dressing as fictional heroes and villains in the name of Comic Relief. 

Characters ranged from Jami Beech as Captain Sponge Monkey, Rachel Hufton as Haberdashery Hero and we even had Steven Bedford as ‘The Baffler???’ We didn't quite understand either!


On the day the team dived into a cupcake bake off with over 12 entries. The hard task of judging the delicious cakes was handed over to Amanda Woolley with the trophy going to Production Apprentice Daniel Wilson, although we think he might have had a little help…

The rest of the day was filled with a raffle and quiz, with a swearing ban in force throughout! The Martek team managed to raise over £175 for Comic Relief.

We look forward to our next charity challenge!

Martek welcomes on board ECDIS technical specialist

Martek Marine is pleased to announce the recruitment of Torben Holmelund, Technical Manager.

Based in Denmark, Torben will be managing the production and launch of the new iECDIS and will be specialising in the technical aspects as it goes to market in March.

Bentley Strafford-Stephenson, ECDIS Product Specialist states “Torben is a welcome addition to the team with the announcement of our new iECDIS for launch in March this year. Torben brings with him a wealth of experience of ECDIS having worked in the maritime industry for many years.”

We welcome Torben to the Martek team.

Martek Marine achieves Gold Standard!

Martek continues to WOW customers as a Gold Investors in People award is presented.
Here at Martek we’re constantly looking to improve the service that we provide for our customers and we believe that starts with having a great work force. To show our commitment towards our staff we contacted Investors in People towards the end of 2012 and invited Lesley Bers, their Investment in People Specialist, into the business to assess the opportunities that we offer to our team. We always set ourselves the highest standards and this was to be no different as we set our sights on achieving the top level award- the Gold Standard.

Our staff had a chance to tell Lesley what they loved about the company, as well as aspects they’d change. One of the factors our employees loved was the work hard, play hard attitude. One employee stated “If you put the effort in you’ll get the rewards”.

Another factor encouraging staff is the potential to grow within the company. One individual said “Challenging, very rewarding. High performance but the rewards are there; I’m living proof- from temp to senior manager!”

After a thorough look at the company’s staff policy, the training available and employee wellbeing we were delighted to say that Investors in People awarded us the Gold we’d been striving towards.

Lesley praised, “This is the best example I have seen of core values really being embodied into the way the organisation works and every aspect of what they do”. She added “There is a definite energy and enthusiasm around the organisation, not least because of the energy of the CEO which does seem to be infectious!”

CEO Paul Luen said, “Since the very start of Martek in 2000, we have always aimed to achieve the best in the field, and the Gold award is the recognition we’ve been looking forward to in the recent years”.

We will now be working with Investors in People in the coming months to look at the areas which we can improve further.

We will also look to including our Singapore office in the Investors in People assessment in the near future as we aim to become a world class company.

Martek goes the extra 18,000 miles in the name of customer service

Martek Service Engineer Mick English

Martek Marine prides itself on always meeting its customers’ requirements, but service engineer, Mick English, went beyond the call of duty making a 40 hour 18,000 mile round trip to Malaysia to hand deliver spare parts to ship management company  V Ships.

“We’d promised to get V Ships their parts on time and the only way to do it was to do a hand-over at Kuala Lumpur. It was pretty exhausting, but worth it,” said Mick

V Ships manager Mohammed Haque said: “it was the best service we've ever received!”