John Dover
Chair of Trustees
John is a retired Senior Aerospace HR Executive now working in the charitable sector. He has over 40 years aerospace business experience now followed by 15 years working as a trustee in the charitable sector across community sports trusts, museums and now since 2018 with Seas Your Future.
Jane Nicklen
Trustee
Trained as a lawyer in Nottingham. Specialist in strategic planning, community rights & regeneration. 37 years working for the public sector in South Yorkshire, Aberdeen & Dorset. Volunteer experience includes School Governor, Teenage Cancer Trust, Aberdeen Childrens' Panel, West Dorset Diabetes UK, NHS Dorset & Weymouth College Corporation. Now very proud to be a trustee of Seas Your Future making a positive difference to the lives of young people!
Patrick Hoverstadt:
Trustee
Patrick (Paddy) learnt to sail when he was 6 and has been sailing tall ships for almost 20 years. In ‘real life’ he’s a strategy and organisation design consultant working across sectors in 23 countries, does occasional work lecturing in a number of universities and has written several books on systems theory and management science. He also chairs two social enterprises – one a professional body and the other a professional qualification awarding body. Before that he was a blacksmith.
Simon Wiliams MBE
Trustee
Simon is a Planning & Regeneration consultant & fundraiser and has been a trustee of the Chesil Sailing Trust. He was also Head of the Dorset Local Operations, for the London 2012, Olympic & Paralympic Sailing Events held in Weymouth & Portland.
Nick Lambert
Trustee
A master mariner and a committed proponent of the maritime users’ perspective, Rear Admiral Nick Lambert concluded a long naval operational career as the UK National Hydrographer in December 2012. He advises on a wide range of maritime issues including the growing potential of the blue economy concept, the importance of spatial data infrastructures and hydrography for maritime economies, the evolution of eNavigation and GNSS vulnerability, near or real time situational awareness (especially that derived from space based assets and applications), maritime connectivity and cyber security, human factors, and training and education in the maritime sector. He has a particular interest in the Polar Regions and is also engaged in a variety of situational awareness, fisheries and aquaculture management, marine autonomous systems and vessel efficiency projects.
Paul Naranjo-Shepherd:
Trustee
Paul is a Master Mariner, with over 15 years’ experience in the maritime industry. He has served on a variety of vessel types, from cruise ships to research vessels and tall ships to superyachts, and is passionate about the maritime industry, sail training and ocean science. Additionally, he brings business management and training skills to the charity, having run two of his own businesses since 2017.
Craig Sheffield:
Trustee
Craig has been in corporate finance for over 30 years, building an amazing, wealth of international, hands-on experience of both leading and partnering with some exceptional talent. His whole career has been within the fast-moving tech sector. As a postgraduate he joined Motorola for 5 years, while studying for his professional accountancy qualification. Eventually, he was luck to work for Microsoft in the UK and then he and his family relocated to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. After they all returned to the UK, he joined a family-owned German financial technology services and consultancy firm where he stayed for another 7 years. Then in 2020, he joined his current firm Aristocrat, a global gaming company. Along with Badminton, one of his major passions is for sailing, and he has very recently passed the intensive RYA Yacht Master Coastal qualification; but not on a square rigger, on a much smaller 33’ sloop rig yacht.
Karen Heenan
Trustee
A transatlantic voyage on a tall ship after university was Karen's first experience of sailing. She has since qualified as a lawyer in civil and commercial litigation and went on to spend the majority of her career in the voluntary sector, including with two youth development charities. She is now a mediator and chair of professional regulatory hearings.
Kevin Fleming:
Trustee
A physicist and highly experienced naval aviator with over a third of a century in the Royal Navy where he deployed to many of the world’s seas and oceans, Kevin now enjoys a portfolio career in both the commercial and voluntary sectors. He is a Maritime Situational Awareness & International Engagement expert engaging worldwide; he concentrates on maximising the benefits of fused any-source data to increase understanding to deliver improved evidence-based decision making and policy. He also facilitates strategic leadership development for senior NHS staff and is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London. In the voluntary sector he is a Parish Councillor, a trustee of his local village hall and is becoming a more active member of the local community heritage group.
Roy Jarvis:
Trustee
Roy is a youth worker and teacher. He has over 30 years’ experience of using outdoor education as a vehicle for personal development with young people. He is also an ex professional yachtsman and has crewed aboard numerous vessels including as Bosun aboard ‘Sea Cloud’, one of the world's biggest square-rigged ships. He has logged around 150,000 Ocean miles. Roy has done research around the benefits of sail training with young offenders and has a keen interest in different cultural perceptions of shipboard life and the assimilation of different cultural groups into ship routines. He is also passionate about the sea and traditionally rigged sailing vessels and has a strong interest in ocean science and the blue economy and the impact of containerisation as a driver of globalisation. Roy has his own model of team development and situation leadership which was developed through his expedition work with young people. This was published by the Institute of Outdoor Learning.