Meet the former American football player looking to open up employment opportunities

Robert Lorne, a former American football player, was left homeless after losing his job in the travel and tourism sector back in 2018.

Mr Lorne, who started his work career at the global investment bank, failed to find a job with many recruiting for low-skilled jobs deeming him to be overqualified. The York-based entrepreneur lost his home, car and all his savings.

However, the experience gave him the idea for Worker Bee – a technology platform that connects employers to workers looking for temporary work for up to 12 weeks.

It will also provide a rating system that enables employers to see how the worker was viewed by previous employers on the platform.

“Much like a recruitment consultant does but without the recruitment agent discriminating against CVs and disabilities,” Mr Lorne told The Yorkshire Post.

The founder of Worker Bee was supported in getting back on his feet by the charity Selby District AVS. Currently, Mr Lorne is doing some consultancy work helping businesses find efficiency savings. He is also developing Worker Bee at the same time, which he started work on last April.

The platform is yet to launch but Job Centres throughout Yorkshire have agreed to trial it, says Mr Lorne, giving Worker Bee access to 150,000 users when it does launch.

Next month, Mr Lorne will be looking to raise £120,000 through a crowdfunding campaign to complete the development of the Worker Bee system.

Mr Lorne was a promising American football player in his youth and even earned a scholarship to attend Oregon State University.

He then moved to Russia to play for a couple of semi-professional teams. However, while he was in Moscow, Mr Lorne was involved in a bad car accident that led to him injuring his back and leg – ending his playing career.

The owner of the team he was playing for was also a managing director of Goldman Sachs Russia, who gave him an opportunity in the investment management world.

“I didn’t particularly like the Goldman Sachs stint,” he said. “I came from a team sport, where everyone helps each other, and that Goldman Sachs investment manager world is very dog-eat-dog.”

A year later he moved into the travel and tourism industry, joining Thomas Cook and becoming its head of destination change and lean implementation.

“They gave me an opportunity to go over there with fresh eyes and look at their operations and find money where they weren’t looking essentially,” Mr Lorne said.

He added: “I did that up until about 2017. I loved it. One of the highlights of my life was working with Thomas Cook.

“I used to fly all around the world, meet so many different people but it got to a point where I was living out of a suitcase and in hotels. The novelty wore off.

“I remember the Christmas just before I left, I was in a hotel in Tenerife and I went down to the restaurant to have Christmas dinner and they wouldn’t let me in – they said you haven’t booked.

“I went out to try and find somewhere I could have Christmas dinner on my own. I couldn’t find anywhere apart from a pizza shop that was doing Christmas pizzas. I remember taking that back to my hotel and eating it, thinking to myself that I should be with my family.”

He joined Flight Centre before eventually ending up at an American travel company, which went bust. Mr Lorne, who had only just moved back up to York, was left scrambling around for work.

The American football dream

Originally from York, Robert Lorne was a promising American football player but his career was curtailed after the taxi that he was in was involved in a serious accident.

“At first I was devastated,” he said. “It did take me a long time to get over it.”

Mr Lorne added: “I still watch American football today and I hear the clash of the pads and it takes me back.

“I played in the UK and was lucky enough to get onto the Great Britain team when I was very young. I was about to go to Hull University and Oregon State came up along with a couple of other colleges. They were interested in me coming over and playing for them.”

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James Mitchinson