There was cause for celebration at Eastwood Hall on the night of 18th October, at the second Materials Handling Engineers Association Excellence Awards 2017.
Now in their second year, the awards were conceived to recognise and reward the talent and creativity of the association’s members and the world class capabilities of its member companies.
The enjoyable evening was sold out, with more than 140 guests sitting down to dinner followed by the awards ceremony. Hilarious after-dinner entertainment was provided by comedy hypnotist Ian Dee and game members of the audience.
Top row, left to right: Adam Christie accepts his MHEA Apprentice of the Year Award presented by Rob Leighton, DMN Westinghouse; Phil Trimble accepts the MHEA Innovation Award on behalf of Conveyortek from James Bullock of ProSpare; Philip Waddell and Lee Nesbitt receiving their award for Project of the Year on behalf of Telestack presented by Michael Kaye, Flexco UK.
Bottom row, left to right: Laurence Millington and Ashley Maxwell from Vortex Global accepting the MHEA Supplier of the Year Award 2017 from John Connolly of Kingfisher Industrial; Peter Webster was this year’s recipient of the MHEA Harold Wright Award; A Special Award was given to former MHEA Executive Committee member Linda White
Conveyortek won the Innovation Award for their High Performance Conveyor Metal Detector that can self-calibrate and work with steel cable conveyor belts.
Vortex Global scooped Supplier of the Year Award, having been nominated by LeBlansch Bulk Handling Equipment for its excellence in a recent collaborative project at a silica plant in The Netherlands. The pneumatic conveying system supplied by Vortex was simultaneously engineered and constructed in just one and a half years while production continued as usual at the plant.
Apprentice of the Year was awarded to Adam Christie from Rotary Power. Adam is an Apprenctice Service Engineer and won for his commitment and desire to learn and develop, passing his HNC in Mechatronics with distinction.
The hotly contested Project of the Year Award was presented to Telestack who impressed the judges with the scale and throughput achieved with their Titan T1600-8 Bulk Reception Feeder.
The Harold Wright Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Peter Webster, MHEA’s Secretary for his unerring commitment to the association through five decades. A prominent industry professional, Peter has worked with the MHEA since the beginning of his career in a number of roles including Vice President and President. He has held the post of Secretary since 2008 and announced his retirement at the dinner.
Former MHEA Executive Committee Member, Linda White from Fairport Engineering, was also presented with a rose bowl for her support and contribution to the association from 2006 to 2017.
Michael Kaye, outgoing President of the MHEA, said: “Once again, the MHEA Excellence Awards dinner was a huge success and provided us with a platform to highlight some of the fantastic achievements in bulk materials handling.
“The judges were very impressed with the standard of the entries – our congratulations go to all the winners. In only their second year, the awards have attracted huge interest and competition and we feel certain that the accolades will become more and more coveted in the years to come.”
