BUILDERS Coombs (Canterbury) Ltd has appointed two operational directors from within the company. Keith Jarrett and John Healey have just taken up their directorships and are based at the firm's Wincheap headquarters.

Mr Jarrett joined Coombs five years ago as a contracts manager. He had worked in the past for national contractors and also did a stint in the Gulf. He said: “My job will remain much as it has been but I will be gaining directorship experience. I view this as an opportunity to see the nuts and bolts of how a business is run".

Mr Jarrett and his wife, Kay, have lived in Canterbury since 1984. Their daughter, Nicola, has been a contracts manager at Coombs for two years. The couple's other daughter, Helen, is at Barton Court School and wants to study law.

Mr Healey joined Coombs in 1981 as a contracts surveyor and was promoted contacts manager six years later. He has promoted the encouragement of younger people training in the building industry, sitting on the advisory committee at Canterbury College for its Construction and Built Environment Programme Development Group.

He and his wife, Anita, and children, James, aged 10, and Elena, five, live at Sturry.