DaForce
It would appear he was the first IPTL of the RMPA/MRA4 IPT, appointed in 1999. Not responsible for in-service Nimrods, but a stakeholder (as the input to his contract was the MR2 fleet) and therefore had a vested interest in (and a requirement to have a finger on the pulse of) the airworthiness of the aircraft his team had to modify. Put another way, he would have a Service Level Agreement in place between his IPT and the Support IPT (at Wyton) whereby the latter agreed to provide xx serviceable and airworthy aircraft at yy build standard, and would have staff to continually monitor this at it would almost certainly be one of his top risks. (As the agreed build standard would be enshrined in his contract with BAeS, and any deviation would mean programme slippage and extra cost). I believe this to accurate but please correct me anyone if I'm wrong.
I should add that, at the time, it was a standing risk in any such modification programme that you would be poorly served by such SLAs as senior management in DPA did not enforce them. That is, DLO (and AML and AMSO before them) could, and often did, ignore them, leaving DPA in the clag. As I said, DPA management were entirely comfortable with this - a prime example of the "lack of management oversight" they were accused of on the Chinook Mk3 debacle (same 2 Star BTW). This was one of the many drawbacks when support was split from MoD(PE) as dependencies increased over which the PM had no control. This has been corrected (again) by the formation of DE&S and the creation (again) of a single Nimrod office. See here for a wider discussion of the problems;
http://www.publications.parliament.u.../300/30005.htm
Mary - "mated" in the context of the two aircraft, although the principle applies equally to AAR modification integrated into the aircraft.