Tony is currently the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of SW Comms. Tony also has many other commercial interests in the City but notably he is the Chief Executive and Chairman of Exeter Chiefs Rugby, who over the last 10 years he has steered from playing amateur rugby in the fourth division at a run down 100 year old ground to a recently completed state of the art Rugby stadium at Sandy Park situated on the edge of the City. The club is now a full time professional team and currently plays in the Aviva Premiership.
Tony was educated at Grove Road Secondary Modem Gosport, left school at the age of fifteen and joined the Royal Marines Band as a Bugler/Drummer and spent most of his service career serving on Royal Navel Establishments.
Made redundant from the Royal Marines in 1972 he started up a company in Exmouth called Exe Marina Services which sold and repaired powerboat engines, he went on to successfully race single seater catamaran powerboats in the UK and Europe becoming the British Champion in 1976 and setting a new British water speed record on Lake Windermere. He was in the all British team that won the Rouen 24 hour powerboat race in 1978 (the powerboat equivalent to Le Mans).
In 1982 Tony opened the first retail computer shop in the area and when the Government announced that they were going to open up the telecommunications market Tony immediately recognized the potential opportunity and set up the first independent telephone company in the South West called South West Telecoms, selling and installing business telephone systems. Over the last twenty five years the company has grown to become a very diverse Group of companies and one of the largest independently owned communications companies in the UK and has changed its name to encapsulate this fact (South West Communications Group).
Tony is a keen motorcyclist and has recently undertaken motor bike trips through Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo and around South America to raise money for Devon charities. In his spare time he restores old fire engines and collects stamps.