Stephen is a materials expert with extensive global experience providing independent materials and corrosion advice to multi-national companies in the built and engineering sectors.

Stephen is enthusiastic about providing solutions to issues faced by clients in the changing business environment, and the goal of achieving net zero power generation. Stephen is an experienced expert witness in legal and insurance cases completing cases in multiple jurisdictions including projects/cases Australia, Europe, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Middle East, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, North America, South America and United Kingdom.

Prior to joining Hawkins, Stephen gained over 25 years’ experience undertaking failure analysis and root cause analysis for clients in the built environment including transport infrastructure together with manufacturing and operations in the process, pipeline, and power sectors.

Since 2009, Stephen has focused on the power sector, helping loss adjusters, insurance companies and owners /operators investigate events in various power plants from renewables (hydro, energy from waste, geothermal (binary and flash units) and wind) to thermal generation assets (coal and gas power plants (simple cycle, cogeneration, and combined cycle)). Investigations completed have covered static and rotating components located within the fence of the power plant. Projects have also included condition assessment of gas and steam turbines, and outage support for operators. In the case of forced outages, Stephen has worked for both operators and insurance companies but not at the same time. In the latter case, insurers have also retained Stephen to function as their site engineer providing daily reports on the progress of the outage, depending on the extent of the repairs required can extend to several months.

Stephen joined Hawkins in May 2023 and is based in our Manchester office.