A WEYMOUTH-BASED engineering firm is set to double its turnover to £1million after it was paired with a specialist mentor.

Bay Engineering is also set to increase its workforce from 11 to 20 due to assistance from Dormen – a Dorset business mentoring service which links experienced business people with companies.

The Lynch Lane Industrial Estate firm, which supplies precision components, was turning over £500,000 before the recession of 2008 and that dropped slightly in the immediate years afterwards.

Managing director Darren Taylor then contacted Dormen, which suggested Frank Guinn as a mentor. The partnership has been a spectacular success with the company now on track to nudge the £1million turnover mark this year.

Darren, who along with Steve Balem established the company in 2001 following a management buy-out, said that the main thing the mentor has done is to give him confidence.

He added: “When Dormen first approached us we thought it sounded too good to be true.

“After the crash things went a bit quiet in 2009 and all manufacturing companies were affected.

“We were jogging along okay and decided to approach Dormen who put us in touch with Frank Guinn who actually had an electronics background.

“We had a meeting and he basically got us asking ourselves the questions we should have been asking.

“It was just good to have an outside point of view and our confidence grew. Because we were meeting with him every month we were more motivated to put in place things that we’d decided to do.”

The company moved premises in March 2012 and bought new equipment. Mentor Frank Guinn, who formerly ran several highly successful electronic businesses, said: “Like everyone, Bay Engineering was hit by the recession.

“I had a meeting with Darren and Steve and we discussed how they could diversify by doing assembly work.

“In the meantime they gained new customers and started to recover. They put in place controls to monitor costs to see which projects were most profitable.

“They have done everything properly and invested profits back into the company with a new building and new machines.”

Vivian Dunn from Dormen said: “Mentors can often just instil confidence in business people and point them in the right direction – and that can be incredibly valuable.”

See dormen.org.uk and bayengineering.co.uk for details.