After over 32 years of service with Bairds, our Distilling Customer Manager, Mark Kinsman, will be retiring on 30th October 2020.
Mark first worked for our business on a student placement starting in January 1981 and returned to the industry as a laboratory manager in 1983 after finishing university.
Mark has been the face of Bairds for many of our distilling customers in the time since he joined our Commercial team in 2005. For the last 15 years we have been fortunate to have Mark representing our business across Scotland and the Far East.
“I feel very privileged to have been able to travel to so many distilleries in such beautiful locations all over the world. It’s been such an honour to taste the individuality and creativity of master distillers’ creations, both on my doorstep and overseas.”
Mark first joined the Bairds team in 1988, when he took up the role of Process Manager at the Arbroath Maltings. In 1990, he began the role of Plant Manager at our Inverness Maltings and has been based in the Highlands for the last 30 years. “When I first took on the role as Plant Manager in Inverness it was owned by Moray Firth, but in 2000 when I became the Production Manager for Scotland both Hugh Baird and Moray Firth had merged to become Bairds Malt as it is known today,” said Mark.
Mark has also run our very successful Malting Course for 23 years which has helped some of our own employees and many of our customers learn more about the art of malting, the industry and all its important facets.
Mark was elected a Fellow of The Institute of Brewing & Distilling in 2018 after over 10 years of committee work with the Scottish Section of The Institute of Brewing and Distilling, which included Chairman of the World Wide Distilled Spirits Conference held in 2014 and Chairman of the IBD Scottish Section in 2015 and 2016.
His services to the industry pave the way for the next generation of the Bairds Malt team to take up his mantle and support the relationships that Mark has forged over the decades.
“It will be sad to leave a job that I have done for so long, but I think it’s about time I started enjoying the beautiful bottles of whisky I have collected over the years.”
We would all like to thank Mark for all his hard work over the last 32 years and wish him the very best for his retirement.
