FROM welcoming the Queen and the Olympic torch to the Rugby League World Cup and first Warrington Festival, there have been many highlights in Jan Souness' recent career.
But when the 58-year-old steps down as managing director at leisure and culture companies LiveWire and Culture Warrington next week, it will be something else she looks back on with most pride.
"It is hard to pick out just one thing.
"But the thing I am most proud of in LiveWire is that more than 40 per cent of the people who came through the doors and used our services had never done so before.
"People who had never done sports, never used libraries.
"That is my highlight.
"Buildings like Orford Park are fantastic. But they are just buildings, it is people and the team here who make them," she said.
Brought up in Liverpool, the mum-of-three has spent the past 15 years in Warrington in a career of more than 40 years, mainly in councils.
"Local authorities are amazing – I am a product of fantastic public services.
"I was brought up on a council estate, my mum and dad didn't have a lot.
"I got a grant for my first job, was given the opportunity to go to night school funded by the council and from there I started my career.
"They can really bring a town together. In an organisation like LiveWire, you can get behind a town and be brave in your decisions," she added.
And that has allowed her most recent highlight – permission for a new £1.5 million leisure hub in Bewsey and Dallam.
"The councillors Pat Wright and Kate Hannon have done such a good job and it is incredible that this will now happen.
"If I perhaps have one regret, it is that I couldn't make it happen earlier," she said.
DEPARTING managing director of LiveWire Jan Souness will still be seen in Warrington.
She will spent two days a week overseeing some of the organisations biggest projects, the changes to Great Sankey Leisure Centre and the new Bewsey and Dallam hub.
And she says creating the 'wellbeing hub' in Great Sankey, which will focus on dementia in order to tackle the growing ageing population in west Warrington, is a result of her own experiences.
"I would say one of the biggest lessons in my life was looking after my mother-in-law who had dementia.
"Sometimes in public service we have the best of intentions and provide services we think people want but they are not ones people always need and they don't always work for that person or that neighbourhood.
"Now I always think of of that when we are trying to solve a problem," she said.
Work on Great Sankey will start later in the spring and should be completed by early 2017.
And for Jan, her retirement will allow her to spend more time with her mum Joyce and daughters Siobhan, Sylvia and Naomi.
She said: "When my career was starting to take off, you have to make sacrifices and you can't do the school run.
"I remember my daughter telling me 'you have never been a Blue Peter mum'. So I have always been so lucky and look forward to spending time with them."
THE new boss at LiveWire and Culture Warrington says the town has a rich history of working together for the common good.
Emma Hutchinson takes over from Jan Souness on February 8.
The 36-year-old has spent her career working in local authorities across the north west and joined the organisations in 2012.
She said her experience will help her over the coming months.
"Jan has done a fantastic job establishing the companies and growing them and we are particularly financially stable.
"I am looking forward to continuing the work Jan has started," she added.
For the mum-of-two, that includes new ideas, especially around taking the cultural offerings further afield in the town.
"We have focused on our existing venues which was the right thing to do. Now we can look further out into the town."
And Emma, originally from Bolton but now living in Manchester, says she is looking forward to getting to know the town better.
"I know people already from my time here and I think everyone here is very resourceful.
"It is tough in times of austerity but you know people in Warrington just get on with it.
"And that is a quality I really like and I cannot wait to be a bigger part of."
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