International Men's Day 2025: Sunderland graduate awarded Freedom of the City of London

Published on 19, November, 2025

Today is International Men's Day and one Sunderland graduate has joined the roll call of legendary figures from history - including Lord Nelson, Florence Nightingale and Winston Churchill - after being awarded Freedom of the City of London.

Steve Mustard graduated with a BEng in Digital Systems Engineering in 1989 and moved to Texas in 2008 with his family. He is now President and CEO of an independent automation engineering consulting in Texas. National Automation, Inc, based in Houston, provides a wide variety of services to customers in businesses in oil and gas, water and wastewater, food and beverage, and transportation.

Steve recently joined the Worshipful Company of Engineers and was invited to England to be awarded Freedom of the City of London.

He said: “Being from Sunderland, I was destined to end up as a miner or shipbuilder, but a chance meeting with a lecturer at Wearside College resulted in me attending Sunderland Polytechnic (the University of Sunderland’s predecessor institution) to study Digital Systems Engineering.

“I spent three great years from 1986 to 1989, mostly in the Edinburgh Building. Sunderland Polytechnic was full of amazing lecturers and I learned so much from them, not just my technical subject but how to learn and how to apply my knowledge. The Control Engineering department was where I spent most of my time and I am forever grateful to the amazing staff there. I would not be where I am today without them or Sunderland Polytechnic.”

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Steve’s previous and current client list includes: the UK Ministry of Defence; NATO; major utilities, such as Anglian Water Services and Sydney Water Corporation; major oil and gas companies, such as BP, BG Group and Shell; Fortune 500 companies, such as Quintiles Laboratories; and other leading organisations.

The Worshipful Company of Engineers is the 94^th Livery Company of the City of London. The Liveries are an institution almost as old as London itself, with some guilds able to trace their origins back to the 12th century, with the earliest charter still in existence being granted to the Weavers' Company in 1155.

Today, there are more than 100 liveries, supporting trade, education, charity and fellowship, working in the best interests of the communities in which they operate, raising over £75 million each year for various charities.

The award is a great honour for Steve and for those engineers he represents, but, he admits, there are some unusual rights and privileges that come with the Freedom of the City of London.

“As a Freeman I have the right to be executed with a silk rope for capital crimes, the right to carry a sword in public, exemption from the press gang and safe passage when drunk," says Steve, and thought he doesn’t intend to exercise any of these ancient rights, as an adopted Texan he has one benefit that might come in useful.

“I have the right to drive sheep over London Bridge. Who knows, one day."