Wingspan Consulting is a management consultancy based in Cumbria, with offices in Keswick and Kendal. It was set up in 2005 by its two directors, Guy Huxtable and Quentin Merritt.
Guy Huxtable
Guy moved to the Lake District in the late 1990s to spend more time walking in and exploring the mountains. He now lives in Keswick, in the heart of the National Park. He has a particular fondness for Corsica, which combines beautiful mountains, colourful rockpools for swimming, wild flowers and excellent wine!
He graduated with a degree in Philosophy, and has post graduate qualifications in Management and in Environmental Decision Making. He has worked in the private sector (mainly in retail), the public sector at the Lake District National Park Authority in a variety of roles, and in the third sector as a director of a social enterprise and as a charity trustee. He has particular expertise in project and change management, and strategic planning. He has been a director of Wingspan Consulting since 2005. He is currently:
- Cumbria Squash and Racketball (Trustee)
- Natural Kendal (Steering Group member)
- Sustainable Keswick (Core Group member)
- Wigton Rugby Union Football Club (Director)
- Wilder Lakes CIC (Director)
Quentin Merritt
Quentin lives in Kendal and is passionate about walking, cycling, running and wild swimming in the mountains. He has a long-standing interest in sustainability and is particularly interested in climate change and rewilding.
Quentin is a qualified teacher and has taught science, English as a Foreign Language and outdoor education in the UK, Botswana, Greece and the USA. After completing an MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College in the late 1980s, he worked for an environmental consultancy in London, before travelling to Mexico to carry out research on urban air pollution. He then spent more than a decade as a lecturer and researcher in higher education at the universities of Central Lancashire, Greenwich and Cumbria. This was followed by spells working for Action with Communities in Cumbria and the Lake District National Park Authority. He has been a Director of Wingspan since 2005, a part-time tutor with the Open University since 2010 and is involved in the following organisations:
- Burneside Community Energy (Director)
- Cumbria Social Enterprise Partnership (Steering Group member)
- Cumbria Sustainability Network (member)
- Natural Kendal (Steering Group member)
- South Lakes Action on Climate Change (Trustee)
- Wilder Lakes CIC (Director)
- Zero Carbon Cumbria (Working Group member)