MORTON'S new chairman who has spent his life building up businesses by creating winning teams is now working his magic at Cappielow.
Greenock entrepreneur John Laird is hoping to transfer all his experience from the oil, gas and nuclear industry as well as a sports agency business and hospitality, into propelling the club to the top.
The boy from Bow Road - the Tele Community Business Champion of the Year 2024 - credited his grandparents, who brought him up, with instilling in him values that have shaped his life.
And it is that upbringing that has helped him go into boardrooms with the 'big guys' and he says that is an asset that will work well at Cappielow as he returns to the club.
But at the heart of it all is the dream team at home with his wife Michelle and his two grown up sons.
As the 65-year-old is now taking the helm at Morton, a club he has a lifelong affiliation, a role which promises to test all his skills.
On taking over at the helm, he said: "I am not the guy working in the engine room, I am the captain steering the ship.
"When people ask me what my best skills are in business, I build good teams, that is what I do. It says a lot that in my 40 years in business, those that I have worked with come back time and time again. That says a lot.
"Don't get me wrong I can be a hard taskmaster but people want to work with me.
"I have said it before I don't mind making the hard decision, that is no problem for me, it is about making the right decisions that gets you respect.
"Running a club is very different to running a business.
"As the chairman it is so important for me to work closely with our manager Dougie Imrie, that is a crucial relationship."
Football, family and business has been at the heart of everything he achieved from there on in.
His record in all three are phenomenal, including setting up JL engineering, an oil, gas and nuclear consultancy with a major contract at Hinkley Point and Sizewell.
As John gets ready to package up the lucrative business and sell it on he reflects on his 40-odd years in the business.
He said: "I have always relished testing myself against the big guys. I have never been one of those big guys, I am the wee guy from Greenock.
"But I feel really comfortable in there in the corporate environment in there challenging them all.
"It is my upbringing. Like being chairman of Morton, it is a privilege to be that wee guy from Greenock in there competing with the big guys from Shell, BP,Marathon and EDF, the ones at the very top of the tree."
Family man John says that it was his childhood that created his drive to succeed.
He said: "I have always had a drive and a determination, I have been willing to make sacrifices. I think that comes from my own childhood. I never got the recognition from my mum and dad. I never had a mum and dad who said well done.
"I was brought up my grandparents Eliza and John Laird, they fought for me. I was brought up on stories of my grandmother going to Edinburgh to get custody of me.
"It was my grandparents who gave me the values that I live by. They taught me to be hardworking, to be polite, and to be respectful to the police.
"They gave me the work ethic and morals."
But his own difficult childhood and an estranged relationship with his own parents, made John determined to put family first and foremost with his wife of 37 years Michelle, who is also from Greenock, his sons Stefan, aged 33, a successful football coach and now assistant manager at Elgin City, and Declan, an actor based in LA.
He said: "Michelle runs everything with me, we knew each other growing up, our families were friends.
"My wife and my kids mean everything. With our sons it was important to give them everything that I never had, but also to instil the values that you have to work for what you have, that there are people out there who don't have enough.
"They know that they are loved and they know what is important. When they were growing up. It doesn't matter where I am in the world, I have never, ever missed a sports day or a parents evening."
As a teenager John was one of the best young footballers in Inverclyde but then followed his grandfather, a coppersmith, into the yards, as an apprentice draughtsman.
As an ambitious young man John spotted opportunities in the North Sea oil boom and branched out setting up his JL Engineering.
Soon John was branching out, setting up his own sports agency representing the likes of Chris Eubank and Ian Poulter John and Michelle also set up a property business.
At the same time John forged a strong relationship with then Morton manager Allan McGraw and chairman John Wilson, who was a naval architect.
In the 1980s and early 1990s the club was bringing on a steady stream of outstanding young players.
John helped them capitalise in the transfer market bringing in £25million pound in today's money for the club by selling the likes of Alan Mahood, Brian Reid, and Derek McInnes on.
He added: "It was a great three way relationship."
Together John and Michelle, who helps run all the businesses and their property portfolio, decided to give back.
They have donated as a family around £150,000 to good causes.
One which is very close to his heart is Children in Poverty Inverclyde, run by Pat Burke.
John, who now lives in Kilmacolm, said: "That is an important charity to me, they give back directly to children, sending them on holiday and it is so important."
The Greenock-born businessman has also devoted his time to mentoring, by going into schools as a inspirational speaker to encourage.
He said: "I am always looking for the boy at the back, who isn't paying attention and telling him to listen. They are the kids I want to reach out to."
As a pupil at Greenock High John harboured a dream of being a lawyer.
But he added: "My careers advisor told me I was better at the technical side of things. So I left to go to Scotts. But that lawyer side of me remains, I think that is where the interest in contracts comes from."
Now in Morton's 150th year John together is steering the ship in the right direction with with investors Dalrada, shareholders Morton Club Together, the Morton Trust, the manager and the players all on board.
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