STANDING back and admiring his own handiwork is rarely an option for Martin Rigley. There are always new directions for the business to go in. The engineer began working for his father in 1994 after 14 years as an electrical engineer down the mines – Mansfield, Welbeck, Gedling, Annesley- Bentinck and Thoresby.
The business he joined then is the same one he runs today, based in a quiet but industrial corner of Sutton-in-Ashfield. Lindhurst grew out of the mining industry, designing and installing heavy coal-face equipment under ground.
The work it does today, however, is very different.
"I started down the mines as a student apprentice after my A-levels at Brunts School, in Mansfield, and went on to do a degree at Trent Polytechnic – now Nottingham Trent University," says Martin.
"Initially, I resisted joining my dad in the business, happy to be working down the mines. When I eventually got round to joining in the mid-1990s, the coal industry was in serious decline.
"We had to move in different directions through innovation and bright ideas, using the knowledge and skills we already possessed and bringing in fresh ideas to generate new orders."
Much of the work that followed for Lindhurst involved orders for Severn Trent's sewerage system, taking the skills the firm had gained working in the mines and applying them to drains – "swapping one great big hole for another".
From there, orders for the London Underground Jubilee Line extension followed as well as work on the foundations of what was to become the Canary Wharf station development.
"We were still doing heavy engineering but it was bespoke stuff, precision-made one-offs in some tricky places," says Martin.
"Basically, if people want something making and can't find it anywhere else, then they come to us. We'll look at the site, the challenges involved and then tailor-make the solution using our skills and our imagination."
This work resulted in what must be one of the most unusual heavy engineering projects so far – a piece of installation art by Turner-prize nominated sculptor Richard Wilson, created as part of Liverpool's European City of Culture status in 2008.
An oval section two storeys high was cut from the façade of the city's former Yates's Wine Lodge building and mounted on a spindle. This was powered by industrial rollers so it could oscillate in and out of the building as it span through 360 degrees.
Hard to imagine, but once presented with the artist's vision, Lindhurst came up with the goods.
"When we got involved, the project had got as far a cardboard model using a pencil as a shaft. It was down to us to turn that into reality.
"This is what the UK engineering industry does best. It has to innovate and adapt to survive. We are the brains behind the future of engineering – not just in the UK but around the word."
Mentioning the future of British engineering can get Martin quite animated.
As vice-chairman of the East Midlands Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing and a skills champion for the CBI in the East Midlands, he spends much of his time talking to youngsters about engineering as a career.
"If we are to have enough engineers for the future we need to start enthusing primary school children about technology now – it's something governments and business must take joint responsibility for. We are going to need many thousands more engineers over the next few years, simply to keep pace with the rest of the world," he says.
Other technological landmarks for Lindhurst include the hydraulic and electrical control systems for the Tower of Babel, the 26-tonne, 26-metre-high centrepiece for the 2000 Millennium Dome Show. The structure was the largest moving stage ever built.
Martin and his team of 40-plus have also worked on rail projects and major construction work, including the new Duxford American Air Museum building and the Cheesegrater – London's latest iconic skyscraper, due for completion in 2014.
But it's not all heavy chunks of metal and concrete.
Anaerobic digestion and the energy it can produce is a developing area for Lindhurst, which is working with experts from the University of Nottingham and partners Arla Foods UK on the technology to convert farm slurry and food waste into electricity and bio-gas.
Meanwhile, Lindhurst is also branching out into lifting equipment using airbags, rather than the more traditional electricity and hydraulics.
In terms of safety, hygiene and contamination, this system is ideal for food and pharmaceutical factories.
But as an illustration of sideways thinking, the technology makes it a lot lighter than traditional hydraulic lifting gear, which is handy should you need to continually load it on and off vans, trucks and ships while travelling the world.
So it was the perfect solution for British heavy metal group Iron Maiden during their ongoing world tour. The show features the keyboard player rising dramatically from the stage on a platform – tailor-made and powered courtesy of the engineering skills and ingenuity to be found in Sutton-in-Ashfield.