Dermot Russell FCIOB awarded honorary CIOB life membership

CIOB has recognised the leadership and support of long-time CIOB member Dermot Russell FCIOB by awarding him honorary life membership. 

Dermot became a Chartered Member in December 1989 and joined his local branch a year later to become an assessor on interview panels and adjudicator. 

He also began to serve on boards and committees including the Education, Qualifications, Standards and Practice Board (EQSP), now the Professional Standards Committee, and the accreditation panel. During this time, he made a significant contribution in bringing forward the Irish Institutes of Technology for CIOB accreditation and upholding and modernising our Education Framework standards.

Following the change of the Professional Review from a peer interview to a competence-based report in 2012, Dermot immediately stepped forward to lead the standardisation of the process through his contributions to the Professional Review Management Committee. During his many years serving on the committee, he contributed ideas to improve the process and to ensure it is fair, equitable and unbiased, including suggesting an anonymised process to ensure unconscious bias could not affect results. 

Dermot always ensured members are represented in the application process and that their experience with the CIOB is a positive one, including contributing to the production of guidance notes and support for new members joining our community.

Fellowship standards 

In 2016, Dermot helped rewrite the fellowship standards, ensuring fellows can demonstrate they lead people, organisations, and the sector through their work. Dermot played a key role in defining those standards that the current Professional Standards Committee see as key to leadership in the industry. He furthermore worked as an external examiner for the Fellowship and always considered the process from the applicant’s perspective, ensuring that fairness and good customer service were priorities in the process. Dermot was a fair and supportive member to our fellowship team, adjudicating many fellowship applications in a kind and independent manner. 

Dermot worked in academia for more than 30 years before his retirement last year, and spent much of this time mentoring CIOB staff, particularly Jo Bennett, CIOB Senior Programmes Manager for Fellowship who will greatly feel his absence due to his enormous knowledge, sharp mind and compassionate disposition which have made such a difference to our fellowship applicants particularly in difficult circumstances where he has proved himself to be an independent and reliable arbiter. 

Dermot also served two terms as president of The Institute of Clerks of Works and Construction Inspectorate of GB (ICWCI), demonstrating his commitment to quality in the built environment through inspection. This could not be more relevant now with the Building Safety Act and indeed the CIOB Corporate Plan.

In short, Dermot has played a leadership role in ensuring our professional standards are current, relevant and accessible to all, that we are fair to all customers and applicants and the CIOB accreditation is aspired to by all the Technical Institutes in Ireland and that quality is at the heart of all we do.