Father’s Day 2025 – Paul & Sam Tingey, AKW Technical Experts

To celebrate Father’s Day 2025, we took the time to speak technical experts Paul and Sam, who have both successfully climbed the career ladder since joining AKW and also happen to be father and son.

General Manager & Technical Director Paul Tingey first joined the AKW team in the early 1990s as a Business Development Manager in the south of the UK. Over several years his role took him across the region, with Paul servicing customers from West London, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire.

After a brief period away from AKW, Paul returned to the business in 1998 and relocated his family to Wiltshire, where his Sales area spanned from Berkshire to Cornwall.

In 2005, Paul set up and managed the AKW Surveying service, which offers customers across the UK mainland on-site surveys to help design accessible bathroom and kitchen spaces, with Surveyors now conducting over 7,500 surveys every year.

He also set up the Maintenance team in 2012, overseeing a team of Maintenance Engineers conducting warranty visits and delivering on-site care and repair services as and when required.

Following the successful launch of these additional customer provisions, in late 2012 Paul was promoted to Technical Director. 2020 saw him undertake additional responsibility of the growing Customer Services department, before General Manager was added to his title in 2021, where Paul remains a key figurehead at AKW.

Paul’s eldest son, Sam Tingey, officially joined the business in 2018, although he’s been part of the AKW family since he was a teenager. During the school summer holidays, Sam would offer up his time to help with customer deliveries, while his younger brother, Joe, lent a hand in the warehouse.

After finishing his exams and leaving school, Sam gained years of hands-on technical experience as an Apprentice Electrician, before joining AKW as an Apprentice Plumber, where he undertook the role of a Maintenance Engineer while studying at college.

Sam celebrates his 7-year anniversary this summer and is now AKW’s Maintenance Manager, overseeing a team of six Maintenance Engineers located nationwide and offering on-site Toolbox Training to customers.

Outside of work, both Paul and Sam are huge rugby union and football fans, regularly following their beloved West Ham United to fixtures across the country – and Europe too when the opportunity presents itself!

Sam, who is himself a husband and father of a two-year old son, is also a keen rugby player and is Loose-Head Prop for Chippenham RFC, for which AKW are a proud player sponsor.

Their close bond means Paul and Sam spend lots of quality time together outside the office with their families, who recently travelled down south to support Paul as he completed a 15,000ft sky dive!

Thank you to Paul and Sam for letting us share their career stories!

We’d like to wish everyone a lovely Father’s Day weekend!