Jimi Heselden
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Jimi Heselden OBE |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
James William Heselden 27 March 1948 Halton Moor, Leeds, United Kingdom |
| Died | 26 September 2010 (aged 62) Thorp Arch, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom |
| Cause of death | Accidental fall off a cliff while riding a segway |
| Residence | Leeds, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Years active | c.1985-2010 |
| Known for | Chairman of Hesco Bastion Ltd |
| Net worth | £340m |
| Awards | Officer of the Order of the British Empire |
James William "Jimi" HeseldenOBE (27 March 1948 – 26 September 2010) was a British entrepreneur. A former coal miner, Heselden made his fortune manufacturing the Hesco bastion barrier system. In 2010, he bought Segway Inc., maker of the Segway personal transport system. Heselden died in 2010 from injuries apparently sustained falling from a cliff while riding his own product. His estate, bequeathed to his widow and family, was worth over £340 million and he was ranked in the top 400 members of the Sunday Times Rich List.
Heselden grew up in the Halton Moor district of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. At the age of 15, Heselden left Osmondthorpe Secondary Modern School to work as a labourer and then at collieries in Temple Newsam and Lofthouse. He lost his job in the wave of redundancies that followed the 1984–85 miners' strike and spent his redundancy money on renting a workshop and, at first, setting up a sandblasting business. He then worked on developing and patenting a collapsible wire mesh and fabric container, now called Hesco bastion, to be used for building flood management and to limit erosion.
In 1989, Heselden founded Hesco Bastion Ltd to manufacture containers of the same name; filled with sand or earth, they quickly found favour with the armies of several countries, as they allowed effective blast walls, barriers and revetments to be quickly constructed. Made in Hesco's factory in Leeds, these were shipped (flat-packed) in great numbers to conflict zones, including Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as later being used for flood defences at New Orleans. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours, "for services to the Defence industry and to Charity."
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