Members
Andrew Cooke
Andrew is the Safety, Health and Environmental Sustainability Director of GRAHAM, a privately owned company with a 200-year history specialising in building, civil engineering, interior fit-out, facilities management and investments across the UK and Ireland.
He has worked with GRAHAM since 1991, and has held a various engineering, project management and central management roles in the company before taking up his current position in 2007. Andrew is also the Group Compliance Officer under the Modern Slavery Act and leads the Safety Culture and Climate Programme. He is a mental health first aider and behavioural safety coach.
Andrew holds degrees in both Law and Civil Engineering, as well as diploma and certificate level qualifications in law, risk management, and occupational health and safety. He is a member of the International Institute of Risk & Safety Management and has been a guest speaker at numerous seminars for HSENI on both construction safety and behavioural safety.
Andrew is a committee member of the Building Mental Health Alliance, a member of the Civil Engineering Industrial Liaison Panel at Ulster University, a founder member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (NI Region) H&S Group and sits on JSAP (the Joint Standards Advisory Panel which advises on the standards for certification to Safe-T-Cert).
He was previously appointed as an independent member to the HSE (GB) Fee for Intervention Dispute Panel.
He does not hold any other public appointments.
Dr Patricia Hart
Pat was a consultant ophthalmologist in Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (RVH). She holds a general medical degree (QUB), a postgraduate Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in Ophthalmology and a Fellowship of The Royal College of Ophthalmologists (London). In addition to general ophthalmology clinical activity, she developed a sub-specialist interest in medical retinal diseases, and especially diabetic eye disease, the leading cause of blindness in people of working age. She was instrumental in establishing the NI Diabetic Eye Screening Programme, working extensively with a wide range of stakeholders including other medical practitioners, patients and charitable organisations, and aiming to identify those in need of treatment intervention at the optimal time. Together with a small number of colleagues from all four UK nations she contributed significantly to the UK-wide screening programmes, serving on the Advisory Board of the English Screening Programme for many years until 2014.
She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB) in 2014.
She previously had spent seven years (1985-92) in Singapore as Visiting Consultant at both Singapore National University Hospital and Singapore National Eye Centre and was privileged to work alongside several entrepreneurial and visionary eye surgeons. She was invited to serve on the Advisory Board for Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) which is now recognised worldwide as a centre of excellence.
Pat is married with three adult children and four grandchildren. She enjoys a wide range of musical activities and sport.
She does not hold any other public appointments.
Simon McDowell
Simon McDowell has spent most of his career in a variety of roles at Kilwaughter Minerals Limited. He was the managing director from 2001 to 2019 and continues to sit on the board. Simon is an executive committee member for the Mineral Products Association Northern Ireland. He completed an Institute of Directors Diploma in Company Direction in 2014.
He does not hold any other public appointments.
Siobhán Rooney
Siobhán Rooney trained as a general nurse, midwife and health visitor and has worked in acute, community and primary care health and social care settings. Throughout her career she has held senior management positions at health and social care trusts and Department of Health in Northern Ireland.
Siobhán has an MSc in Health Service management and is also an associate consultant with NI HSC Leadership Centre. She has also worked with the former Commission for Healthcare Improvement (CHI) and participated in health care reviews in England and Wales.
She is currently vice chair of the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) NI Branch, an MNDA visitor and was formerly an elected trustee on the Motor Neurone Disease Association National Board.
Siobhán has held several board chair and non-executive director positions in the statutory, voluntary and charitable sectors. She brings to her position an extensive knowledge of corporate and clinical and social care governance, risk management, patient safety, performance management and accountability systems within statutory, voluntary and charitable sector organisations.
She does not hold any other public appointments.
Gerry Strong
A former high school principal, Gerry spent most of his professional career teaching in grammar schools, comprehensive schools and in technical colleges in England.
For three years he worked for Manchester University as a mentor for graduates studying for their post graduate certification in education (PGCE). Gerry also held the posts of chief examiner and chief moderator for the Northern Examination and Assessment Board (NEAB) for a period of eight years.
In 1998 he returned home to Northern Ireland to take up the post of principal of a high school in Omagh. He took early retirement after 35 years in education in 2008.
In his retirement years he held the following posts:
- worked for eight years as a non-executive board director in the Business Services Organisation (BSO) serving on several internal committees
- worked for three years for a cancer charity, in a voluntary capacity, as the governance chair and its development chair
- worked for four years for the Commissioner for Public Appointments NI (CPANI) as an Independent assessor on government departmental board appointments
- worked for two years for the Department of Justice Policing Board as its independent complaints monitor in the appointment of independent members to policing and community safety partnerships and community safety partnerships.
He is currently a board panel member for the Department of Education’s Exceptional Circumstances Body (ECB) (remuneration £250 per day) and is a lay panel board member on the PSNI’s Police Misconduct/Disciplinary Panel (remuneration £250 per day).