Mike McCloskey, past president of the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA), has died at the age of 66.

Mr McCloskey began his career in the HVAC industry by serving a craft apprenticeship with Hope's Heating & Engineering, before spending 30 years with national contractor Lorne Stewart plc, latterly as managing director of the company's maintenance division.

Since 2004, he served as a director of south London-based Argent FM.

He became a member of the executive committee of the BESA (then the HVCA) in 1985 and sat on the Council from 1992 to 2015. He was president of the Association in 2006/07 and of GCP Europe, the international umbrella body representing building engineering services, from 2012 to 2014.

During the late 1980s, Mr McCloskey served as chairman of the working party that produced the first generation of SFG20, the standard maintenance specification for building services.

He became chairman of Welplan Ltd – BESA's principal commercial subsidiary – and a director of Piper Enterprises in 1998, as well as a member of the Finance Committee in 2001.

"Mike's passing has robbed the Association and the building engineering services sector of one of its most active, most committed and most experienced leaders, and our thoughts are with his wife Theresa and their family at this sad time," said BESA chief executive Paul McLaughlin.

Picture: BESA past president Mike McCloskey.