Former Worsley College student becomes Ceremonial Mayor

4th February 2021

Councillor Mullen, who represents Barton ward, has been be sworn in as Salford’s Ceremonial Mayor. Councillor Mullen was a student at Worsley College in in 1984.

After leaving St Albert’s RC High School in 1976 Councillor Mullen became an apprentice glazer before switching trades and qualifying as a welder. In 1984, newly married to his wife Michelle and with the arrival of their first son Kelvin, he taught himself computer programming and completed a BTEC at Worsley College.

“Two years later we had our second son Jonathan and I was working at a private car park. The manager was struggling with one of the first IBM computers, so I offered to help. I re-loaded it and wrote a programme that cut three days off the manual billing programme. He told me I was wasted in that job and found me my first computer job at Provincial Bank,”

Councillor mullen, salford's ceremonial mayor

From there he went on to work for an American credit company regularly travelling to America, Japan and Europe and complete a degree in computer science and professional qualifications with the British Computer Society. He later became self-employed and worked for the Office of National Statistics, Sainsbury’s and Walmart before semi-retiring last year.

When asked about what advice he would give to students wanting to achieve big, he said: “Education is the best way to guarantee a better life for yourself. If you can find the aspiration to study, then you should follow that dream and you’ll be surprised at how far you will come.”

He added: “When I worked at a Carpark in Salford, I never dreamed that I would be able to fly all over the world on business trips. I just didn’t think that it was in my reach. But here we are today.”

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