Creative Innovations for Land, Air and Space - with CEO Tomas Flanagan, ÉireComposites

In this podcast Melanie Boylan spoke with Tomas Flanagan about their latest news and innovations coming up in an array of sectors.  Irish creativity at its best!

Tomas Flanagan is the CEO of ÉireComposites. He joined ÉireComposites as a Marie Curie senior research fellow in 2014 and subsequently held the position of R&D director before becoming CEO.  He has managed over €7 million of research funding and concerning innovative manufacturing, novel materials and processes, aviation, space, and renewable energy.  Tomas obtained a PhD from the University of Cambridge for research focused on design project planning and management with special emphasis on simulation and risk analysis. He previously worked in roles as Turnaround Project Manager at BP Norway and Offshore Construction team lead in BP Angola. He has also held roles in change management and in-house consulting within BP. Tomas has lived and worked in several countries and has a keen interest in sports, especially soccer, running, and hiking.

ÉireComposites is an innovative design, manufacturing, and testing company, involved in lightweight, high-performance fibre-reinforced composite materials, with an international blue-chip customer base of over 70 companies in the aerospace, renewable energy, and automotive sectors. ÉireComposites has established accredited aerospace composites manufacturing and testing facilities in Galway, Ireland, and has significant intellectual  property in manufacturing and tooling for composite materials. It manufactures over €2 million of primary structure aerospace components for Spirit AeroSystems annually and supplies components for Bombardier and Airbus aircraft.  In addition to aerospace, it manufactures wind turbine blades, tidal turbine blades, and catamaran hulls. The company was founded as a spin-out from NUI Galway and maintains a strong  research and development focus. ÉireComposites has managed over €20  million of EU FP6, FP7, and Horizon 2020 projects relating to composite materials for wind turbine blades, aircraft structures and space launchers. The most notable of these are Powderblade (manufacturing technology for very large wind blades), FloTEC (Floating Tidal Energy), SEABOAT (Novel Materials for zero-emission Boats) Airpoxy (novel  Aerospace materials), and LEAPWind (leading edge erosion protection for wind blades). In addition, ÉireComposites has three ongoing projects related to space programmes.