28 August 2014

In June 2014 Costain announced the 150 Challenge in celebration of the company’s 150th Anniversary in 2015, which aims to raise £1 million for the Costain Foundation’s four charities.

The chosen charities are the British Heart Foundation, Macmillan Cancer Support, youth charity The Prince’s Trust and The Samaritans, each will receive equal portions of the funds.

One of the fund raising activities will be the 2015 London Marathon where seven Costain colleagues have been awarded places to join Darren James, Managing Director of Infrastructure around the 26 mile route.

One of Darren’s co-runners is Billy Welch, an apprentice Engineer from the Hammersmith Flyover project, who was so determined to run the marathon that he had started training even before being awarded a starting place.

Billy by his own admission is an unlikely marathon runner, but he has his own personal motivations for taking part and sees it as stepping stone to climbing Mt Kilamanjaro. Billy has recently joined a gym and is now visiting three times per week, playing football twice a week and is hoping to find the time to take up playing squash. This is a significant lifestyle transformation for the former HGV driver who has been inspired by colleague Simon Lewis, Construction Manager at Hammersmith Flyover, and his many physical charity activities.

“I have set myself some targets and aim to be able to run the 14 mile journey home from work, twice a week by the end of the year and would love to complete the marathon in under four hours, which I know is a tall order “ says Billy. “The announcement of the Costain 150 Challenge is great and I hope that it inspires many others to step outside of their comfort zones for such an amazing cause”.  

The full Costain team will be:

Lee Davies
Marie-Frances Guittap
Darren James
Graham Keegan
Caroline MacPhee
Graham Sugrue
Billy Welch
Phil Whitney

Ends

 

Enquiries:

Costain 
Tel: 01628 842 444
Graham Read, Communications Director 

Instinctif Partners
Tel: 020 7457 2020
Helen Tarbet