Institution news
Matt Chapman joined the army because he thought it would be exciting to fix weapons. Growing up in rural Lincolnshire, in the Midlands, he couldn’t have imagined the adventures that lay in store.
Twenty years on, as Matt prepares to assume his new rank of Captain in the army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) Corps, he says one of his greatest passions is dismantling stubborn myths about engineering, one of which is that it’s a boring career.
Matt has been on three separate deployments to Kosovo, has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, endured six weeks in a jungle in Belize, in Central America, and has built precision parts for the supersonic Bloodhound car. He also studied with the Open University to achieve an MSc in Engineering, became professionally registered with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and helped his wife raise three daughters. “Plan and act early,” he likes to say.
Matt’s career in the army began with a REME apprenticeship at the age of 16 and worked towards becoming an armourer. Matt says he always had a passion for engineering. “The military operates a lot of kit,” he explains. “There’s the weapons, helicopters and tanks, but there is also medical and dental equipment and UAVs; REME repairs them all.”
Matt’s grandfather served in the Royal Air Force (RAF), which is how the family landed up in Lincolnshire. Matt didn’t know it at the time, but his grandfather was an engineer too, an airframe fitter on the Avro Vulcan bomber jets.
Matt’s early deployments involved supporting tanks and infantry units, so he moved around a lot, from Germany to Canada and back to the UK. He served with a rapid response unit, deployed to Iraq (where he supported over 200 soldiers) and got an armourer Class 1 upgrader course under his belt.
In 2008, after a “fierce selection process”, Matt was chosen to do an Artificer Weapons course for two years. It was his first real step into leadership and, after two years and an award for his academic performance, he earned his first higher level Mechanical Engineering qualification and made Staff Sergeant. The door to professional registration swung open.
“We are the professional engineers of the army,” he says. “To be able to say that, to act like that, to be professionally registered and to be benchmarked against our peers in civilian industries, it absolutely professionalises what we do.”
Matt was now being deployed with large battalions and was increasingly called on to train and lead. For a while, he investigated military accidents around the world, collecting evidence, writing reports and supporting external agencies. He climbed the army ranks (to Warrant Officer) and continued his studies, pushing towards a Masters degree culminating in gaining Charted Engineer status in 2017 with the Institution.
Then, there was the speed-smashing Bloodhound… “It’s amazing,” Matt says. “If you love engineering as I do, it’s that complete immersion. You’re in it every single day, all day, no distractions. It’s pure engineering.”
Matt was based at the Bloodhound Bristol workshop for nearly a year. He manufactured small but mission-critical parts for the car, which were installed in the pedal box, steering column and in the breaks system. He built brackets, pins and bearings. He also helped create support equipment, like a rig to test wheel rotation. As a soldier accustomed to working on, or near the front line, Matt was creative and resourceful.
This year, Matt applied for a commission and was one of only a handful of REME soldiers to make Captain, a commissioned officer rank he officially takes on in a few months time.
“It’s a chance to lead REME engineers, particularly on operations, and to inspire them to be the best engineers they can be,” he says.
In his spare time, Matt builds prototypes in his private workshop, conducts independent reviews of machine tools and does volunteer work with the institution, chairing interviews or manning stands at events. He’s a STEM ambassador, helps military engineers prepare for careers outside the armed forces and always encourages people to get professionally registered as soon as possible.
Plan and act early.