When Stephen Howett joined Borough in 1986, Britain’s best-selling car was the Ford Escort, achieving more than 150,000 sales in the year. Quality management has changed since then to require a dedicated liaison professional, someone with the knowledge, temperament and credibility to sit across from a client and discuss tolerances, accreditation and continuous improvement.
Forty years on, Stephen retires from Borough, having spent much of that time as precisely that dedicated professional.
Borough’s story over the past four decades mirrors much of what has happened to British precision manufacturing more broadly. The business was transitioning from traditional metal plating into the technically demanding world of plating on plastics; a shift that opened the door to even more work with the automotive sector but brought with it an entirely different set of expectations from customers.
Quality became a commercial differentiator and automotive-specific standards moved from nice-to-have to non-negotiable. Customers with global supply chains and zero-defect programmes needed more than a good product; they needed a reliable point of contact who understood their requirements and could be trusted to accurately represent a supplier’s capabilities. Stephen became that point of contact.
Over the course of his career, Stephen supported sales teams, attended trade exhibitions and visited customers on-site across the country. He did so without fuss and without fanfare. His approach was patient and methodical: understand what the customer needed, establish whether Borough could deliver it and ensure the relationship was maintained to the standard both parties expected.
That combination of technical knowledge, commercial awareness and interpersonal reliability is not easily replaced. It accumulates over time and it shows in the relationships he built. Many of the customers Stephen dealt with in his early years remained Borough customers throughout his tenure.
Joint Managing Directors at Borough, David Brereton and Nick Coombes, have worked with Stephen for much of those four decades, David said: “Stephen has been part of the fabric of this business for as long as most of us can remember. The industry he joined and the industry he leaves are almost unrecognisable from one another and yet his approach never wavered.
“He brought consistency, professionalism and a genuine commitment to the customer to everything he did. We will find it hard to replace his ‘can-do’ attitude that always ensured the needs of our customers were at the heart of the decisions we have made during our growth. That matters, and it will not be easily replicated.”
Stephen retired on 29th May 2026 at the age of 78. Outside of work he is a committed Tottenham Hotspur supporter, a fact that has required considerable patience over the years and will, no doubt, continue to do so. Borough wishes him a long and healthy retirement.
