Lee Contreras joined the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) in January 1989 as a Mapping and Charting Officer grade 2, and after successfully completing a 5-year apprenticeship with a local Engineering company.

His first role in the UKHO was in the Chart Correction Office before moving the Chart Compilation Branch responsible for compiling charts of North America. On promotion to a Mapping and Charting Officer grade 1 he moved into the Defence area of the UKHO, compiling Airborne Early Warning charts/RN Air Radar charts, RN Fleet Charts and Submarine Charts. During this time, he supported Royal Navy Operations in Sierra Leone, The Balkans and the first Gulf war compiling specialised charts requested by RN units in theatre.

After completing the UKHO compilation training course and gaining promotion to a B3 (Mapping and Charting Officer) he moved to the UKHO Mine Warfare Data Centre managing the Route Survey Database and suppling MW data to the RN Mine Warfare Squadrons for route survey, exercise, or operational tasking. Then followed a move to develop Submarine Electronic Charting branch for the RN.

Following a further promotion to a B2 (Higher Mapping and Charting Officer) he moved away from Defence into the Production Systems Competence Team providing technical support and advice to fellow UKHO staff using software to compile electronic and paper charts, he was the subject matter expert for bathymetric processing and archiving software applications used by the UKHO.

Moving back into UKHO Defence he became the UKHO Defence Database Manager managing bathymetry collected supporting the Royal Navy, additionally developing, and implementing the porting of the legacy Route Survey data base into a COTS database application for the UK Hydrographic Office Mine Warfare Data Centre.

Lee is now a UKHO Product and Services Manager and manages the Military Data Services and Mine Warfare Service Definition Annex lines between the RN and UKHO, this ensures the products and services produced or managed at the UKHO and delivered to the RN, MoD or NATO. Lee has been supporting the MHC project by developing how UKHO can process, ingest, database and compile products for the RN Mine Warfare capability. 

Lee lives in Taunton with his wife, Alison who is the Lead Business Analyst at UKHO, they have two children (12 and 16) and enjoys spending his time cycling, canoeing, but mainly as Dad’s Taxi.