Mike is a chartered geologist who graduated from the University of Portsmouth in the UK in 1987 with an Honours degree in Geology and initially worked as a field geologist on oil and gas exploration rigs in the North Sea.  He later moved to the Channel Tunnel project where he spent several years working as an instrumentation and monitoring engineer and geologist for the UK NATM tunnels and undersea crossover.  Following the Channel Tunnel, he worked on a series of transport and utility tunnelling schemes in the UK and took some time out to gain an MSc in Geotechnical Engineering at City University in London.

Mike moved to the Crossrail project in the mid nineties, where he also spent some time on secondment with London Underground's Jubilee Line extension project as part of a research team headed by Imperial College looking into tunnelling induced ground movement and building damage.  The last 10 years have been spent gathering high quality ground investigation information for Crossrail, overseeing the geotechnical aspects of the design, assisting with the parliamentary Bill process and assisting with the procurement of the main underground construction contracts.