Our Story

FRS was set up by Graham Brown, in 2001. This is his story.

I am a Gulf War Veteran, serving in the first Gulf war in 1991 as a medic. I played trumpet and sang around the world with the army, including spending a year at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall. My resettlement experience was pretty poor; as a musician my Resettlement Officer didn’t know what to do with me and suggested doing one of those “psychometric things and get myself down to the job centre”. I did a Myers Briggs profile which suggested my career might lie in sales and recruitment and that’s what I’ve been doing since 1993. After a few years in media sales I was headhunted to be the Sales Manager of The Officer magazine but my poor resettlement experience was still on my mind and I set up and ran the resettlement magazine, Quest in 1997. This magazine helped thousands of service personnel to get the right training in advance of leaving the Forces and many of them into work, but it wasn’t enough. In 2001 I took the decision to set up Forces Recruitment and I’ve never looked back. FRS was the first commercial recruitment agency to place servicemen and women of all ranks and services and we have helped over 10,000 veterans into work. I still contribute towards Pathfinder magazine with a monthly column.

I brought in Colin Date for his Royal Air Force experience and Bill Tharp and Nick Hawkins for their Naval experience, so we had coverage from all 3 services.

I wanted to do more than just specialise in military recruitment; our purpose was to find the best veterans and find people who would stay, develop and add value to a business. You can find out more about how we do this in the “Why do our clients use us” section.

It’s a privilege to serve.