Trevor Jee is Managing Director of Jee, a global engineering and training company specialising in onshore and offshore pipelines. After beginning his career as a graduate engineer at bp, he founded Jee in 1988 and has since built a team known for solving complex engineering challenges and sharing its specialist knowledge with the wider industry.
“When I started working with pipelines, I thought they were simply round and long with a hole in the middle. I soon discovered how many different engineering disciplines they bring together, and nearly five decades later, I am still learning.”
I have always wanted to be an engineer. When I joined bp as a graduate engineer in 1979, I was assigned to pipelines and terminals. At the time, I thought a pipeline was simply round and long with a hole in the middle. I imagined I would have it all figured out by lunchtime and would be wondering what to do with the rest of the afternoon.
It did not take long for me to realise how wrong I was. Pipelines bring together fluid mechanics, structural engineering, soil interaction, corrosion protection, materials science and offshore hydrodynamics. The more I learned, the more there was to understand, and the problems rarely belonged neatly to one discipline. Finding the right answer meant looking at how every part of an engineering system interacted.
That complexity captured my interest and pipelines became the foundation of my career. After nine years at bp, I decided it was time to do something different. I think there had always been something inside me that wanted to build a company of my own, in my own way, and in 1988 I founded Jee Ltd.
I did not begin with a large organisation behind me or a ready-made portfolio of work. I relied on the relationships I had developed during my career and the reputation I had built as an engineer. Those connections led to our early contracts, which included studies on pipeline connectors, concrete structures and a range of subsea engineering challenges.
As the business developed, my focus was not only on the engineering problems in front of us. I was also building a team. People including Mike Hawkins, Graham Wilson and Sean Tucker joined the company, trained from the beginning and developed their careers in subsea pipelines. Today, they form part of the core of Jee.
I am particularly proud of the team we have built. Our engineers and specialists are technically curious and enjoy tackling problems that do not have obvious answers. That curiosity runs through the company, from graduates beginning their careers to Technical Authorities with decades of experience. We share an appetite to understand how things work, challenge assumptions and keep working until we reach the right solution.
Technical knowledge is essential, but successful engineering also depends on people who genuinely enjoy solving difficult problems. That is why training and development have always been important to us. We use our experience of complex, real-world engineering challenges to support the development of other engineers, whether through mentoring graduates, helping clients or delivering specialist training around the world.
For me, good engineering begins with listening carefully to clients and understanding what they are trying to achieve. It also requires the confidence to tell them when there may be a better way to solve the problem. The objective should always be to get the answer right and deliver something genuinely useful, rather than simply provide the easiest or most convenient response.
That principle has helped us build long-term relationships with clients around the world. We work closely with them to understand the problem, budget and timeline before shaping our approach around what is actually needed. Circumstances can change quickly, so being able to respond and adapt is important, but those relationships ultimately depend on trust.
The energy industry today is very different from the one I entered in 1979. Technology continues to evolve, new challenges emerge and the industries we support are constantly changing. I often describe it as surfing a wave. You can be riding one wave successfully, but part of the team must always be looking ahead for the next one.
The same curiosity that first drew me into pipeline engineering continues to shape how I approach the future. Staying relevant means recognising change early enough to respond, while continuing to invest in the people and knowledge that allow a business to adapt.
Outside work, I enjoy travelling, spending time with my family and tending to my garden. Gardening, like engineering, rewards patience and attention to detail, as well as an acceptance that some things simply take time.
Nearly 40 years after founding Jee, I am still looking ahead, still learning and still interested in what comes next. Pipelines turned out to be far more complicated than I imagined as a young graduate, but they have certainly given me plenty to do after lunch.
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