Jonathon Orrell fixes me with a stare, grips my hand and says: "Hello, you must be Jonathan Orrell."

It's an unusual, and disorientating introduction, but funny, in a surreal way, and breaks the ice.

Jon is in a bubbly mood considering he was at his desk at 6am, skipped breakfast and has piles of work to be getting on with.

"I find I can rarely stop. In the end the work runs you rather than the other way round," he says, making short work of a chocolate digestive.

Jon, 50, is co-owner of Hemsley Orrell Partnership (HOP), a firm of civil and structural engineers based in Church Road, Hove.

He is tanned and quite dapper in a pinstripe suit, blue and white gingham shirt and colourful tie. When he speaks, his eyes light up.

Jon started the consulting business almost 20 years ago from a living room in Lorna Road, Hove, with former business partner John Hemsley.

Now co-run by John Spearman, HOP employs 40 staff and is involved with most of the major building projects in the town, including the West Pier.

Other high-profile clients include Taylor Woodrow, Barratts, Glyndebourne Opera and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

The company bridges the gap between those who design and those who construct by employing experts from both worlds.

One of HOP's specialisms is underwater work and Jon is a commercial diver registered with the Health and Safety Executive.

Tomorrow he is flying to Gibraltar where HOP has a multi-million-pound contract to build 100 homes and redevelop a marina harbour.

He is passionate about his work but understands the industry needs to improve its appeal among students to move forward.

He says: "Ten years ago colleges were having problems getting people interested in the construction industry and that is starting to show now.

"There is a skills shortage and I don't think we will ever have enough but both of the universities in Brighton are addressing the problem.

"I am also a great believer in not moaning about something if you can do something about it yourself. That's why we do a lot of work with schools.

"And we employ a lot of foreigners. We have people from Mexico, China, Norway, Greece, Vietnam, Spain and France working for us.

"This is mainly because there aren't enough people with the skills in this country but it's also a great advantage to have bilingual staff.

"I am travelling to Gibraltar with someone whose mother tongue is Spanish so that will be an enormous help.

"Also, they bring new ideas and techniques with them, which aren't perhaps as common in this country and we often use them."

Jon is a graduate of the old Brighton Polytechnic where he gained a degree in civil engineering in the Seventies.

He recalls: "It was the only college which would give me a chance to study on the basis of the work experience I had gained rather than A-levels.

"I started work on building sites and then found work with Sir Robert McAlpine as a site engineer.

"With McAlpine I got a tremendous amount of experience, from oil rigs in the North Sea to the redevelopment of Maidstone town centre.

"I also worked on an airfield in Saudi Arabia. I tried to do a correspondence course to gain qualifications but it wasn't easy from the middle of the desert."

Away from the office Jon likes to spend as much time as possible with his wife Kathy and nine-year-old daughter Sophie at their home in Withdean.

He is a season-ticket holder at Brighton and Hove Albion and his firm helped bring the Withdean stadium up to scratch.

He says the proposed 20,000 seater-stadium at Falmer "must be built".

"For the club's sake it has to be built. I am sure there would be enough fans to fill the arena - there's a big enough catchment area."

The other love of his life is guitars - Telecasters to be precise. For his 40th birthday his wife flew him on Concorde to New York to buy one.

He used to be singer and guitarist in an R&B band called Soul Messenger until he was worn out gigging every weekend.

He reckons creativity and business should go hand in hand and tries to encourage his staff to get involved in the arts.

His firm runs fine art courses and has its own guitar club.

He says: "Engineers tend to be very mathematical or analytical people so I am trying to encourage them to 'think out of the box'. "If you think in an artistic way, you can often bring an extra dimension to a project structurally.

"The lovely arched structure at the entrance to Brighton College is something we are very proud of - it makes the building."

He is not too impressed with Brian Sewell's dismissal of Brighton's architecture as seedy and tacky.

"From a small fishing village Brighton became a wonderful and flamboyant place to live.

"You don't get from one place to the other without taking risks. Besides, you cannot ignore the fact that Brighton is a tourist resort."

Friday March 05, 2004