Hockey's new chief executive Heatly a team player to core

AFTER spending nearly 30 years in the Royal Marines, and serving in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan among many other troubled parts of the globe, Robert Heatly has vast experience of meeting difficult challenges head on.

He has worked in diplomacy, in training, and in recruitment, and has dealt successfully with any number of tricky situations.

In his new post as chief executive of Scottish Hockey, the 52-year-old from Edinburgh will not come up against situations as extreme as he met with in military life, yet it is a demanding move all the same. A keen water-polo player, he is the son of Commonwealth Games diving champion Sir Peter Heatly, and has long had a passionate interest in football and rugby too. But, by his own admission, he is far from being an expert when it comes to hockey.

In a week when it has seemed blindingly obvious to many that the next chief executive of the Scottish Rugby Union should have a sound understanding of Scottish rugby, the appointment of the former lieutenant colonel to the equivalent post in hockey may seem a risky one.

Yet Heatly himself, while in no way complacent about the new direction his life has taken, is convinced his past profession is more relevant than meets the eye. "Most of the things I've done in the military have not been about military operations," he explains. "They've been about corralling resources and people towards a common aim. That's not hugely dissimilar to what we're doing here. I'm hoping nobody is going to shoot at me if they don't like the decisions we take."

The use of that word "we" hints at another reason for Heatly's confidence. He knows how to delegate, and how to defer to others' superior insight when necessary.

Just days into his new job, he has already found out how knowledgeable his staff are. A team player to the core, he has every intention of getting the best out of them.

"I was asked at my interview if I thought my lack of a hockey background was an issue. There was a very detailed job description, and I suspect I ticked a lot of the boxes but not all, and I'm sure people with a hockey background will have been the same. It didn't seem to be a major concern. You've just got to look at the rest of the staff - there are lots of people with huge experience and significant talent." Indeed, despite his lack of any detailed familiarity with the hockey world, Heatly is probably overqualified, if anything, for the job he only began on Monday.

The strategy and planning which became second nature in the Marines would stand him in good stead in far larger organisations than the one he now heads, and it would be no surprise if, in the years to come, he were to move on to a bigger job. For the time being, however, he is more than happy to have established himself in the area he wanted to work in after finally leaving the Marines last year.

"I'm a huge sports fan, and have always enjoyed watching the top level of any sport," he explains. "My main interests have been swimming and water polo, football and rugby, I would say. But I was determined to get into the sports management world, and this was the first job that came along, really."

The transition to civilian life is a trying one for many servicemen, but Heatly has had a very gradual changeover, as his last two positions in the Marines involved dealing with the wider population.

And, having changed jobs every couple of years since joining in 1981, he is happy he did everything possible in that walk of life, and does not miss it. "I've done my bit," he says of bringing those three decades of service to an end. "I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I miss some of the people, and I've got lots of good memories and lots of good friends. I find it quite fascinating, actually - I was determined to draw a line and do something different.

"This opportunity is quite an exciting time. I was wondering where I could put my skills to best effect, and I was determined to do something that I wanted to do, and sport came to the front as something I could get involved in and was interested in."

While hockey will take up much of his time from now on, diving will continue to play a part - James, the youngest of his three sons, is 14 now, and was Scottish senior champion at 12. James has the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games in his sights, having been inspired to take up the sport by his grandfather, a gold medallist in 1950, 1954 and 1958.

"He's got my father's diving genes that skipped a generation with me," Heatly says. "I was never brave enough to throw myself off a diving board like that."

Maybe so. But, for all his modesty about life in the Marines, it's a fair bet he has been brave enough in the past to attempt a few things just as scary. Besides, what has he just done by taking on this new job if not thrown himself in at the deep end?