A flat idea from Wymondham heading to be a world beater

The Extremis Technology team of Cillian Hickey, Julia Glenn and Lucy O'Driscoll with their half size model of their unique shelter.Picture by SIMON FINLAY.

She confesses to have encountered many doubters along the way. not least recently during a critical crowdfunding campaign.

However, just three years after the seeds of a business idea were planted by Extremis Technology founder Mark Aspinall, the company's CEO Julia Glenn now finds herself on the cusp of an international success story.

A half-sized prototype of a fold-flat shelter was the only product on show when I visited Mrs Glenn's modest office earlier this month.

However, the company has already produced three unique shelter designs and with former Army engineer Simon Allen joining the small team at Hethel Engineering Centre, near Wymondham, and other appointments imminent, things will soon be advancing at military pace.

The first six of the company's unique Hush1 shelters - large enough for a family of five - will be built and ready to dispatch to the Dominican Republic as part of a slum clearance trial by the end of October, according to Mr Allen, who has brought with him 24 years experience in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

And a further deployment of shelters to Nepal, to replace earthquake-hit schools, will follow as soon as a charity organiser there has bought the necessary land.

In the meantime, Mrs Glenn is evaluating and negotiating on a deluge of business propositions that have come in after the national publicity generated by their impending work in the disaster-hit Himalayan country.

She is talking to 'more than one' entrepreneur in Sri Lanka about using shelters as pop-up hotels for tourists in remote areas and weighing up a joint venture proposal by Singapore authorities to establish an Extremis production centre there for the Far East market.

A possible deal with a 'major household name' to use the shelters as a way of revitalising its brand is also on her agenda.

She said: 'The potential for our shelters is immense. The United Nations alone spends $6.4bn a year on disaster relief with a third of that going on shelters.'

If successful, the trial in the Dominican Republic, involving Latin American NGO Techo, could lead to large-scale deployment of their shelters across the region; the potential in Nepal can be gauged by the fact 25,000 classrooms in 3,000 schools had been destroyed by the 7.8-magnitude quake in April.

By 2018, their business plan forecasts an annual production of more than 10,000 shelters and a turnover of £9m. Meanwhile, staffing levels over the next 18 months are predicted to rise from the present two full-timers and three part-timers to '12 to 15 may be more'.

Initial production is being handled by Cambridgeshire firm New World Timber Frame, but as the business grows there will be work for many more companies.

'I have approached the Structural Timber Association and found another two companies in our immediate geographical area,' said Mr Allen

Mrs Glenn, who lives in Beccles with husband Andrew and sons Joe, 13, and Stanley, nine, said: 'I am from Norwich and that is important to me.

'It is very important that people see us as a place with exciting businesses and exciting self-made people rather than as a sleepy backwater.'

She can certainly be classed as one of those 'self-made people' having progressed from a modest background to winning a scholarship at Norwich High School.

And the determination she values as the must-have business attribute can be seen in her journey after finishing her English degree at the University of London.

Beating computing graduates to a place on a training scheme to develop programmers, she used her new found skills to work for the Credit Suisse bank on a career path that took her as far afield as Hong Kong and New York, rising to the rank of vice-president for new business.

However, the worth of a job 'helping rich people get very rich' was put into perspective by the early childhood illness of her second son and she took a career break to study for a Master of Business Adminstration (MBA) at Norwich Business School, achieving a distinction and first prize.

Mrs Glenn, whose husband works as a director in the aviation sector, confessed that in the wake of her MBA the top job at Extremis was the only opportunity she ever really considered as it was one that could 'really make a difference'.

'We are here to make a difference. And when you are old and grey it is things like that which you remember,' she said.

The idea for the Extremis shelters had come from designer Dave Watson who 'saw the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake on television and wanted to do something as an engineer to help'.

Mrs Glenn, who joined Extremis in Lowestoft, moving the company to Hethel earlier this year, said their aim was always to 'put displaced people around the world at the heart of everything we do' and they had talked extensively with NGOs and charities about their true needs.

Regarding their shelters, which also included a Hush2 under development to withstand hurricanes, they were evaluating a range of materials as well as the standard marine plywood.

Mrs Glenn, who paid tribute to her supportive board, said: 'Hush shelters are supplied folded flat and can be erected, in almost a pop-up fashion, without the need for tools, additional parts or skilled labour. There is no need for sophisticated foundations and they can be put up in minutes.'

The first production run and an expansion of the staff was founded by this summer's crowdfunding campaign on the platform Crowdcube, which raised £286,000, £26,000 more than its target.