The Technical Officers Association came into existence in 1991/92 when Technical Officers from the adjoining counties of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire had a chance phone call about a client that was moving from one county to the other. There was in total 4 TO`s involved in this first meeting, the main people were Mr Dale Gentleman, a TO from Warwickshire and Pat Shears from Northamptonshire.

One of the main concerns expressed at the first meeting and many subsequent ones is a feeling of being alone and nor knowing where to get advice. Yes there were manufacturers but they were mainly interested in selling their own equipment. What we needed was somewhere to turn, other colleagues that had  more experience. The initial group grew to 14 people and they were able to arrange for a TO course to be run by Wolverhampton University, but unfortunately it was never accredited.

As more people became aware of the Association we held national meetings which attracted TO`s from all over the country, it soon became apparent that there needed to be a more effective forum fro communication and local branches for TO`s to have a chat about problems they were experiencing. There is always one TO that has been there and got  the T-shirt. We have now developed into 6 regions covering the whole country, some of which are more active than others. This is the 3rd Website that we have set up to accommodate the needs of our members. This site will take a while to fully devolve but it will have an interactive chat line for members to discuss problems with each other and with luck, the equipment suppliers, along with a news letter.

We have been instrumental in successfully runing our own training programme held at CityLit in London, we are actively looking for students for the next course. We have our own equipment exhibition for professionals only, to meet our partners in the supply chain. This exhibition moves around the country enabling TO`s from all over the UK to be involved.