Congratulations to Mark Staiger, who is celebrating his 40th anniversary with Boys & Maughan today.

Mark started his career with Boys & Maughan on 12 September 1983 as an office junior aged 19, having undertaken a brief period as a temporary office junior over the summer.

In 1986, Mark took his first steps to being involved with computers when he took a Royal Society of Arts Exam in word processing. The test confirmed that Mark knew how to “start up the equipment, use its basic word processing facilities, correctly retrieve, edit and display text and save and effect the print-out of final single-page documents." How times have changed!

Soon after, Mark was integral in introducing computers to Boys & Maughan at a stage when we had a single word processing package and accounts we could view.

Staff gathered in India House to see Mark presented with a pair of chocolate cakes (Mark's favourite), a card, and vouchers.

Senior Partner Andrew Baker explained, “Mark soon progressed to Office Manager for the firm, and I had my first dealings with Mark when I was interviewed by the partners. There were no websites then, and I remember sending the receptionist into a tailspin by asking for some information about the firm before I came to the interview.

“Fortunately, Mark saved the day, and I remember speaking with Mark, who kindly provided the best thing that the firm had at the time, a set of terms and conditions of business.”

Andrew added, “Mark has always been hugely dedicated and hard-working. He has also shown incredible loyalty to the firm over those 40 years, and has always been on hand to deal with incidents at the office.

“It was Mark, who on 17 September 2018, called the partners at 9.30pm to say that India House was on fire and we should get to the office quickly. Of course, when we arrived, Mark had everything in hand. The fire brigade had put the fire out, and we went through the office to assess the damage safely."

Andrew summed up, “Over 40 years, Mark has progressed from office junior to Office Manager and then, as IT became more complicated, to Head of IT, and able to understand all the complexities of a modern-day IT system. Mark is extremely hard-working, and his helpfulness, loyalty, and sense of humour over all these years are appreciated by all his colleagues. Well done, Mark, and thanks for all your hard work. Here's to Mark and 40 years at Boys and Maughan.”

The 30 staff who had gathered for the presentation applauded and Mark replied, “Thank you very much. Things have certainly changed a lot since I started and used a push bike to get between the offices, and there were no computers. At first, there was a single computer and we struggled to get the data to travel between two adjoining offices. We certainly live in a different world now.

"I am not sure I will be able to make another 40 years, but I certainly continue to enjoy helping everybody and am grateful to everyone for coming along today.”