Background
Paul Marsden was born on 18th March 1968, in Frodsham, Cheshire at 40 Queensway in a Council house (shown above aged two in the garden). He attended Manor House School in Frodsham and then went on to attend Helsby High School where is sister, Pamela was a student. Paul joined the local Labour Party After achieving 7 'O' levels Paul then chose to take a Diploma in Building Studies at Mid-Cheshire College of Further Education in Hartford, Cheshire. After passing the Diploma with Merits and Distinctions in all subjects he was then offered a place on a civil engineering degree course at Teesside Polytechnic (now the University of Teesside) in Middlesbrough.
At this time Paul quickly found his footing in student politics. he was a member of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the League Against Cruel Sports.He went on marches to protest against the ending of student grants, opposing tuition fees, in favour of gay rights, and he spoke out on a range of environmental subjects including protecting the ozone layer, against acid rain, against fox hunting and in favour of increased recycling. This was very much the Eighties rise of the green movement. Paul was elected the Communications Officer of the Students Union (SU) and successfully fought for the Holocaust Remembrance Day to be a fixture in the SU diary.
In 1988, Paul completed a year at North West Water (now United Utilities) in Manchester including a night shift stint observing the quality of water at a Water Treatment Works. Due to family problems Paul pulled out dramatically from his final years just three months from completing his degree course. By September 1990 though he had landed a job at Taylor Woodrow as an Assistant Surveyor. he was quickly promoted to a manager to start from scratch building a quality management system, which was successfully accreditation to the British Standard BS5750 (now called ISO 9001).
In 1991, Paul began a Diploma in Management through the Open University whilst working full time and completed it in 1995 with distinction.
After four years at Taylor Woodrow, when Paul had established himself as a key Quality Manager on projects for Taylor Woodrow Water Services and later Taylor Woodrow Construction, Paul was approached to join the NatWest bank in Telford as a Management Consultant. he advised the Process Improvement Team on BS5750 accreditation and developed an EFQM Business Model for the department of 400 staff.
Paul then went on to join Mitel Telecom as a Total Quality Facilitator, for a year prior to his surprise election as Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury and Atcham.
