Meet the Team

James Donaldson

First point of contact

James is your first point of contact with Whitson’s Ltd. He picks and packs and can help you with quotes for specific projects and will answer most technical questions. If they are unable to help they will refer you to one of the directors. Give them a call on 01738 442800.

James has been involved in Whitson’s since the very early days and deals with all aspects of customer service.  You'll find him in the warehouse 8am to 3pm, Monday to Friday.

Cait Whitson

Director

Cait Whitson, the founder of Whitson’s has been involved in the decorative arts since 1985 and started her first decorative painting business in 1986. Working in an area of the painting and decorating world that involves pushing paints to their limits and where a really good understanding of paint chemistry is an absolute necessity, Cait developed a broad expertise in traditional and modern paint finishes. Not one to keep things to herself she started teaching and has continued to share her knowledge extensively both here in UK and in the USA. Her company built a remarkable reputation as a continuing source of expertise for other specialists and generalists in the decorative finishes market, providing training, courses, blog guidance, technical advice and highly specialised and high end paints and paint finishes.  She and Gibson her husband have acted as stockists, wholesalers and distributors of paint and paint products for a number of companies.

Nick Dubbels

Director

Nick Dubbels is a rare type of paint formulations chemist – one filled with passion for paint and one who has application experience developing the products for and running his own consultancy and specialist floor painting company.

After completing a B.Sc. (hons) in Genetics and Immunology, Nick started working in the coatings industry in 1995 initially working in Quality Control. He then began working on match prediction systems for a variety of tinting systems.  This led to him studying for an M.Sc. in Colour Application Technology at the University of Leeds. During this time he worked as a Development Chemist in R&D, before becoming Technical Manager for one of the largest independently owned UK paint manufacturers.  This has allowed him to work in a variety of markets, including architectural, general industrial, heavy duty and pipe coatings. The development and specification of products for these sectors took him to some extraordinary places, from some of the most iconic bridges in the UK, to lighthouses throughout Scotland, and a multitude of projects in the Middle East and China.

Gibson Donaldson

Director

Gibson has a background in hotel and catering management as well as sales – he and Cait married in 1995 and he joined her in business training as a painter with Cait developing his own style and areas of expertise and bringing to that business a raft of skills that complemented Cait's. Gibson’s favoured speciality is cabinetry decoration – hand painting of fitted kitchen and bedroom furniture; specialist design and cutting of stencils and execution of complex stencilled and trowelled finishes. Gibson has taken his skills into Europe and the Middle East often managing large teams of decorators. Within Whitson’s Gibson’s experience in hospitality and management streamlines the positive customer journey through the buying experience and is vital to the smooth operations of the running the business.