The Town Clerk - Geoff Coates FCIB

Geoff was born in Stockton on Tees and educated at Northallerton Grammar School.  On leaving school, he joined Barclays Bank plc as a junior clerk in 1960 and worked through the ranks to become Manager at Barclays in Richmond in 1990.  During his career he also won a scholarship to study the German banking system centered in Cologne and Frankfurt.

He was also seconded to British Steel Industries in Hartlepool for a period of 2 1/2 years, where he assisted in business “start-ups” and re-locations.  That was his first taste of working with local authorities (Hartlepool Borough Council and Cleveland County Council).  He was elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in May 1993 and took retirement from the bank in 1996 after 36 years of continuous employment.

Geoff and his wife Tina had two spells of living in Richmond, starting in 1972, and it was not difficult for them to decide to stay in the town.  They have been fortunate to be able to get to know many people in the area, and in many ways it has been quite easy to make the transition from their previous occupations of banking and teaching to their respective roles of Town Clerk and in Tina’s case Manager of Richmond Tourist Information Centre.

They have two children, who are both married and live in Bristol and Hartlepool, and four grandchildren.  Geoff counts amongst his interests, playing golf as often as possible and watching soccer and being from Teesside naturally has supported Middlesbrough FC (the Boro) since 1947.

Geoff and Tina also like taking long walks together making use of the area of outstanding beauty in which they live, and both are heavily involved in genealogy, presently researching their respective family trees, with Geoff being slightly ahead, having traced his direct paternal line back to 1656 (not locally but in Gloucestershire).