Dave commenced his engineering career with an electrical and electronic student apprenticeship at the British Aircraft Corporation site in Bristol working on the Concorde programme in systems design and development. His relationship with education started with spells in personnel, public relations, recruitment and schools liaison and he then joined a small team at the CBI Education Foundation to set up the UK Teacher Placement Service. This was followed by national roles with BAE Systems and Young Engineers to focus on the promotion of engineering and technology to young people and teachers. His work at The Royal Academy of Engineering majored on bringing coherence to the promotion of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and chairing the BLOODHOUND SSC education team. He is now education programme director for the BLOODHOUND SSC engineering adventure.