About
Pete Underhill
As a child, I would frequently break things, usually as a result of taking them to bits to see how they work. I was fascinated by nature and wanted to be a vet, or a scientist, or a mechanic. Now in my 40's I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up!
I studied Biochemistry at Bath University and spent 8 years working for the Medical Research Council in Harwell. During my time at the MRC I was involved in the then cutting edge, microarray gene expression studies. This gave me exposure to working in a clean lab, working with robots and creating large data sets. I moved on from the wet lab work to data analysis, statistics and experimental design. I spent several years learning and teaching others how to perform data analysis on these large datasets.
When the time came to move on, I took my transferable skills of scientific reasoning and data analysis and followed my wife to National Grid the electricity system operator. I spent 10 years working in the commercial operations department, covering many aspects of system balancing. My time at NG further developed my programming and data analysis skills whilst also exposing me to many other areas such as reporting, contract management and project management. In 2019 during another internal restructuring, my wife and I both took the opportunity of voluntary redundancy with a view to taking some time out with the kids before exploring new ventures.
Outside of my career, I have spent much of my life doing the same thing, research, analysis and application. Years of watching and helping my Dad service cars, watching "Wheeler-Dealers" and a whole host of other car shows convinced me I could fix or build a car. Which lead to me buying a VW beachbuggy with my brother. Years of watching "This old House", "The New Yankee Workshop", "Grand Designs" and "Amazing Spaces" lead to me building my wife a 30square metre garden studio.
So 10 years ago, when I discovered a love of the Ukulele whilst travelling round Australia, I returned home and found Pete Howlett and his videos on YouTube showing how he builds ukulele, I was hooked and convinced I could build ukes too!
I am still looking to continue my career in the energy industry but opportunities are harder to find in the current climate. Until I find my next role I will continue to research and analyse processes and hopefully build some cool stuff along the way.
