Lifelong Dream of Success On the Pitch ; Third-Generation Tyneside Boiler-Maker Graham Wood Built and Sold Two Successful American Companies. Now He Is Pouring His Energy and Money Into His Hometown Football Club, Writes Peter Mccusker.

Summary

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WHEN the chance came to lead the management buy-out of the heating company that he worked for, Gateshead-born Graham Wood was first senior manager in the queue.

As the main instigator of the move, Wood, who had just turned 40, moved up from works director to managing director of Sheffield- based Trianco-Redfyre when the deal was completed. And within months he had opened a US branch and fulfilled an ambition he had nurtured since first spotting an opportunity to make boilers for the United States market five years earlier. Within a few years he had bought out his three business partners and launched a second US boiler business.

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Extract

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Lifelong Dream of Success On the Pitch ; Third-Generation Tyneside Boiler-Maker Graham Wood Built and Sold Two Successful American Companies. Now He Is Pouring His Energy and Money Into His Hometown Football Club, Writes Peter Mccusker.

By the time he had sold these two businesses for a combined sum of over pounds 20m 10 years later, he had been vice-chairman of Sunderland Football club and had relocated his family to the other side of the Atlantic.

In his mid-50s, rich, successful and with no need to work, although still interested in doing so, he was spending half of his time living in the States and half in London.

But in 2005 he sold his American property and returned to London to take a more hands-on role as c...

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