CEO, Marin Group

Stroud had already completed an apprenticeship in his native Shetland when he decided to take a different career path, driven by a strong desire to explore the world and push his own horizons.

So for the second time since leaving school, he started out at the bottom, heading offshore in 1980 to enter the rapidly-expanding North Sea oil and gas industry as a drilling general assistant.

Stroud soon identified drilling as the area he wanted to make his speciality, working first for Dover Oil & Gas before joining Dan Smedvig Drilling as a roustabout. He acquired a subsea soils diploma, and rose through the ranks to derrickman and ultimately drilling superintendent.

Early on he also began sowing the seeds of the entrepreneur he was to become, launching his first business in 1982 — Offshore Oilfield Services — to provide offshore and onshore operational support. When he won a contract from Consortium Resources Management in 1984, Stroud met
Nick Sills, so launching the collaboration that took development of mass flow excavation to a new level and revolutionised the subsea industry.

They worked together first on the Remote Underwater Excavator (RUE) and then the Jet Prop, and when CRM collapsed they took their skills to the new company, Underwater Excavation Ltd. Here they developed the first V-Jet and claycutter systems. When UEL was taken over, they were involved in setting up Seafloor Dynamex and in 1994 unveiled the new Hydro Digger, chosen to showcase UK technology at Expo 98 in Lisbon four years later.

In 2002, Stroud and Sills established SeaVation Ltd and launched the tool marking the next generation of MFE — the SeaVator. After SeaVation Ltd was sold in 2006, Stroud continued to develop Marin Subsea Ltd and is now building the Marin Group into a truly global subsea excavation operation.

From his earliest days offshore, Stroud has stood out as a motivator, leader, and troubleshooter, and he has managed numerous complex — and often hazardous — subsea operations worldwide. He has extensive hands-on experience of every tool he has developed, setting technological benchmarks while solving the challenges presented by high-profile projects such as the Midgard iceberg claycutting trials, Troll Tunnel piercings, and Ormen Lange.

It is this aspect of his career that now underpins the Marin Group’s reputation for tackling projects where innovation, imagination and exceptional problem-solving skills are needed as well as solid expertise and the best tools. It also underpins Marin’s global role as the Deepwater Red Adair, with Stroud leading the world’s only specialist subsea lost asset recovery team and personally on standby 24/7.  

Stroud has more than fulfilled his goal to travel the world, and his work remains his passion. When he’s not working, he’s usually doing something involving the sea and boats — he races Zapcats, for example, and runs a Zapcat adventure business, Scottish Wildcatz.

Stroud can claim Viking descent and spends as much time as he can at home in Shetland.

And the nickname Boris? That stems from his greenhorn days offshore, when he landed the difficult, messy jobs nobody else wanted. One day when he emerged from tackling a particularly foul task, a colleague joked that he looked just like the horror film actor Boris Karloff. And after the laughter died down, the name lived on.