"Health and wellbeing is at the forefront as we want blue-collar workers to fly high"

Having built a four-wheeled road rocket car from scratch, Eugene McCormack, head of sales and marketing for B&CE, did not shy away from the challenge to rebuild its brand and business.

Like his beloved Caterham Super 7 mean-machine he constructed in 1991, B&CE has been refreshed and reinvented with the help of Mr McCormack, as a restructured firm with a successful refocus on sales.

Since he started about a year ago, it is currently running at more than the double enrolment into its schemes based on 2007 full year business.

Its importance to the UK construction industry has been through the availability of a national insurance tax concession available to construction companies who set aside monies for holiday pay for construction operatives, where this tax benefit is converted into a package of employee benefits for construction workers by B&CE.

The package includes a stakeholder pension plan which has now grown to be the UK’s largest and most popular stakeholder fund, with almost 250,000 construction workers pensions secured within it.

So who is the self-confessed ‘petrol-head’ and music-mad fan, who enjoys the sweet sound of success?

The married father-of-three had originally stepped into the sales and marketing sphere through the pharmaceutical industry in a graduate trainee programme.

But as that market dwindled overnight, many members moved over to the financial services and Mr McCormack followed suit.

He then joined Manufacturers Life as an underwriter in 1972, before he joined City of Westminster Insurance as an inspector, then progressing to branch manager and agency manager between 1975 and 1980.

With other City of Westminster members, he founded Premium Life, leading the sales and marketing team for two years from 1984.

Mr McCormack then joined Irish Life in 1986, where he set up a retail financial business to create a new brand, with high street presence of banking, life and pension products, as a "one stop financial services."

Two years later, he joined Cannon Lincoln as marketing director until 1993.

Other project based roles included managing director at Excel Financial, general manager for sales and marketing for Europ Assistance, head of product marketing and development for Barclays Life, before joining Unum Provident as its director of marketing in 1999 for six years.

With a number of consultancy and interim assignments until 2005, he joined Lincoln Financial as its head of product and marketing.

In July 2007, he stepped into his current role as head of sales and marketing for B&CE.

He said: "B&CE is an interesting unique organisation. It is the major provider of employee benefits to the blue-collar part of the UK's construction industry.