Derek spent twenty years working in British Rail signaling as a control and systems engineer. In 1997, he moved to the United States, working as an Asset Management and RCM consultant across a wide range of industries: oil & gas (O&G), railroad, food, automobile, cement production, wastewater treatment, mining (copper and diamonds), and pharma and medical. In 2003, he joined Cargill and was engaged in establishing RCM training programs, facilitation certification, and standards development. In 2008, he moved to Rio Tinto as Principal Advisor—Maintenance Tactics Development, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Over the last 15 years, he has presented papers, articles, and workshops at numerous conferences on a variety of subjects including RCM, human error, change management, reliability engineering, asset management, and procedure based maintenance. He founded Blue Sky Reliability Consulting LLC in 2013. The company specializes in asset management and RCM training, facilitation services, and project support.