MANCHESTER, England — April 14, 2022 — Alan Little, Association Director of the British Textile Machinery Association for almost 20 years, is standing down at the age of 79 and is leaving the Association.
During his tenure at the BTMA he has managed and directed the association, undeterred by a recession and a pandemic, through changing times and evolving markets and technologies; and representing the industry at government level.
Educated at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology as part of a University Apprenticeship Scheme in association with Mather and Platt Ltd., Manchester, Little graduated in Mechanical, Electrical, Process and Marine Engineering. Little’s career in the textile industry reaches across a remarkable seven decades; with more than 45 of those years being spent in senior sales and marketing positions. Furthermore, he has organized participation and attended at every ITMA-branded exhibition since 1965 in Basle.
He began full time employment at Mather & Platt in its Textile Machinery Design and Development Department in 1960 and was responsible for the design of bleaching, dyeing, printing and finishing machinery, as well as conducting technical audits at large textile complexes in North and Central African countries. By 1971, Little became the company’s sales manager, responsible for textile machinery sales in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, Asia Pacific, and China.
In 1982 he became a founder member and director of Mather Machinery and took control of the sales and marketing of textile machinery in the United Kingdom, North Africa, Middle East, Asia and the Far East.
In 1989, Little joined David Bentley Ltd., and became the sales and technical director responsible for the worldwide sales of calendar bowls and development of specialized rollers in the textile, paper, steel and automotive industries. In 1989 he also joined the Executive Committee of the BTMA, eventually taking over as the association director in 2003.
Jason Kent, BTMA CEO said: “Alan leaves the BTMA in prime condition for its onward journey. He has worked tirelessly both on the world stage and behind the scenes to help promote and market the BTMA members’ products and services. This has been on a day-to-day basis as well as long term strategy, such as organizing much of the detail for many international trade exhibitions, seminars and missions.”
Little says that he is not ready to retire completely and will see what the future brings, however, in the meantime he will spend more time with his wife Anne and also try and find time to get his golf handicap back down to a single digit.
Posted April 19, 2022
Source: BTMA
