Our Team
Adam Bittern, Director/Owner
PhD, CEng, MEng, MiFireE, MSFPE
Adam founded the Astute Fire brand whilst studying for his PhD in 2010 has applied creative fire-engineered solutions to numerous projects on four different continents over the past 20 years. Earlier in his career, working for the fire service, Adam undertook forensic analysis of real building fires, assessing the effectiveness of fire safety systems, and authoring reports which were used to shape fire safety regulations. Adam was also involved in the writing of tall building procedures for firefighting for the New Zealand Fire Service.
He is the author of numerous refereed papers on fire engineering in tall buildings, highlighting critical elements of a fire safety strategy to identify the current state-of-the-art of fire safety design in tall buildings. and the current state-of-the-art of fire safety design. He has provided Section 38 expert advice on several cases in UK, as well as supporting roles on multiple expert witness cases.
Kenny Hamill, Director/Owner
BSc (Hons), MRICS, MIFireE, MCABE
Kenny is a Director of Astute Fire and has been a fire engineering consultant for over 16 years working on some iconic projects. He has extensive experience and a passion for developing fire engineering solutions for historic buildings and Healthcare facilities. Kenny recognises that it is essential to strike a balance between fire-safety provision and relevant conservation issues to arrive at the optimum solution, every historic building is unique, and solutions must be tailored individually to each building.
Prior to fire engineering, he was a Building Standards Surveyor with several Scottish Local Authorities, this background has developed an excellent understanding of the Building Control system and fire-related issues.
Callum MacInnes, Director/Owner
BSc (Hons), AIFireE
Callum is a fire engineering consultant with over 15 years experience of dealing with projects in the UK, Europe, and further afield. Callum is heavily involved in the day-to-day running of Astute with a focus on the financial and team management. He has developed many fire strategies for office developments throughout the UK including the Silver Fin in Aberdeen adopting BS 9999 and the high-rise mixed-use project Skylines in London with Farrell’s.
He has co-authored papers on passive fire protection in healthcare. Callum also has a keen interest in the use of historic buildings and developing fire strategies that factor in the unique aspects of such buildings as well as delivering and PAS 9980 / Single Building Assessments.
Jim McGonigal, Head of Technical
PhD, CEng, MCABE, MRICS, MIFireE
James is an experienced practicing-chartered building engineer specialising in fire engineering and building regulations. James is one of the in-house team of experts on building and fire regulations. In his previous role, Jim was the Scottish Government’s national regulatory for fire safety of new buildings at the Building Standards Division. James has an in-depth understanding of fire safety legislation and guidance and of the building regulatory system.
He has also provided technical leadership and advice on the regulations and guidance to Scottish Ministers, local authority verifiers, and the design community, as well as working with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in the development of national guidance. In addition, he represented the Scottish Government on various British Standard technical committees and was a board member of the RICS (Scotland Building Control Professional Group).
In 2023 Jim took on a new role as Head of Technical after deciding to take a step back from the day-to-day responsibilities of helping to run the Astute business as he moves towards his retirement.
He will still to be actively involved with Astute’s expert witness and external wall work and continue to remain an important part of Astute, albeit in a much-reduced capacity.
Fraser McCourt, Technical Director
BSc (Hons) AIFireE
Fraser joined Astute Fire May 2021 and is an experienced practicing fire engineer with almost 20 years of industry experience. He brings with him knowledge, skills, and experience working in a wide variety of sectors, including education, rail, industrial, healthcare, commercial projects, hotels, stadiums, airports, and tunnels.
He has also worked for the former Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service in the role of Regulatory Authority. Fraser has experience utilising building codes from both inside and outside the UK involving writing technical notes to support design submissions for code compliant and performance-based design, writing fire safety strategies, undertaking third-party reviews, and PAS 9980/Single Building Assessments.
As Technical Director, Fraser contributes more to the overall running of the business whilst continuing to play a key role for the Glasgow office team in staff management and project delivery.
David Meikle, Associate Director
PhD MRICS, MIFireE, MCABE
David began his initial career in building surveying, and moved into local government Building Standards where he worked on a variety of interesting projects with several Local Authorities over the next 30 years. He gained a PhD in 2018 from Glasgow Caledonian University. His thesis is titled ‘The effect of fire on lightweight timber-framed walls containing rigid phenolic insulation’. During this period, David also lectured as an affiliate on Glasgow Caledonian University’s BEng Fire Risk Engineering for 5 years, covering framed building design in relation to fire safety.
In 2018 David left local government and joined Hardies Property and Construction Consultants, working as an Associate within their H&S department before joining Astute Fire in August 2021 to head up Astute Fire’s Dundee office. Drawing on his expertise, some of David’s recent projects have included Fire Safety Compliance Review of hospital premises against HTM-81 including detailed site surveys, defect report and analysis within NHS Trust hospitals (England); and due diligence and fire safety assessments of office developments and student accommodation.
Michael Nicol, Fire Engineer
BEng (Hons), AIFireE
Michael has a MSc with distinction in Fire Safety Engineering gained from University of Central Lancaster (UCLan) and has worked as a fire engineering consultant on a variety of projects in the UK, and the Republic of Ireland including historic buildings.
His projects span a variety of sectors which has also gained him experience producing performance-based fire engineering solutions; external wall assessments including the Single Building Assessment (Pilot Study – Scotland) with the Scottish Government; PAS 9980 assessments; and fire and smoke modelling in fire risk assessments,
Luke Cadman, Principal Design Associate
Luke is the main point of contact for PAS 9980 assessments for Astute Fire. In his previous role, Luke was a senior architect with extensive experience of developing and delivering complex projects from inception to completion across a broad range of sectors including workplace, retail and residential, within the UK and abroad. Luke graduated from the University of Strathclyde in Architectural Studies in 2009 including a semester studying at the Technische Universität Berlin.
He has worked on several high-profile projects nationwide, managing and realising projects using Building Information Modelling for over a decade. Bringing Luke’s expertise into the business enhances and strengthens Astute’s team in responding to the increasing technical review of designs, external wall reviews and construction phase site monitoring.
John Thompson, Senior
Fire Engineer
John joined Astute Fire as a Senior Fire Engineer in May 2023. He brings with him almost 20 years industry experience working within Building Standards and the private sector providing single building assessments, EWS1 surveys, fire strategy reports; and inspection of cladding and fire stopping installations for quality assurance purposes. Being a RICS member and assessor, John provides guidance and support to others who are pursuing membership
John has used his extensive experience in a variety of projects such as PAS 9980 projects and related EWS1 inspections; Fire Safety Compliance Reviews of hospital premises against HTM-81 guidance and third-party reviews involving cladding remediation projects.
Adam Henderson, Design Associate
barch, diparch
After graduating with a Diploma of Architecture from the Glasgow School of Art in 2020, Adam worked in architectural practice before joining Astute. In his previous role, he was heavily involved in projects through design, planning, building warrant and construction stages.
Adam brings with him the technical design skills and construction knowledge , along with an eagerness to learn the intricacies of Fire Engineering, which contribute to his undertakings with PAS 9980/ Single Building Assessments and external wall reviews.
Craig McMahon, Fire Engineer
MSc, MEng, airfiree
Craig has a MSc in Structural and Fire Safety Engineering from the University of Edinburgh and has been working with Astute Fire since 2020. His primary area of interest is the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling, which he has applied to a diverse range of building projects.
Craig applies his fire engineering expertise to fire strategy reports for a variety of sectors; inspections for external wall assessments under PAS9980 methodology; and timber frame assessments. He also undertakes technical research and has developed an assessment tool from the PAS 9980 methodology to establish and qualify a risk rating for properties.
Euan Meikle, Fire Engineer
BENg, aifiree
After achieving a First-Class degree and working in building services, Euan joined Astute Fire in early 2022. Over the last few years with Astute Fire, Euan has gained a strong knowledge base in a variety of areas including design work, due diligence, and external wall risk assessments to PAS 9980. He has also attained considerable experience in fire safety compliance reviews of several large NHS hospitals (England) whilst working alongside experienced senior engineers. The projects have involved desktop reviews, intrusive site surveys, and technical analysis.
Euan is currently a part-time student at the University of Central Lancaster (UCLan) where he is working towards his MSc in Fire Safety Engineering (due to graduate 2025). His MSc dissertation is focused on methods of predicting explosive fire-induced spalling in concrete.
Caitlin Crossan, Finance Manager
BA (HONS)
With a BA (Hons) in Business & Management from the University of the West of Scotland, Caitlin brings 7 years of business and accounts experience to her role managing the day-to-day finances, credit control, and invoicing for Astute.
Caitlin is the main point of contact for clients in relation to invoicing, and finance to ensure the efficient running of the business.
Audrey Meikle, Business Manager
MRes, BA(Hons)
Audrey joined Astute in 2021 and brings with her over 25 years of experience in both public and private sectors successfully developing business relationships and managing projects, latterly working as a freelance business consultant for clients within the built environment.
Audrey manages all the business processes and procedures to ensure compliance. She has also built upon her fire engineering knowledge, initially gained whilst working at Glasgow Caledonian University, to head up / be the main point of contact for the Timber Frame Risk Assessment side of the business.
CONTACT US
For more information, or to discuss how Astute could help you, get in touch.