From left: Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce vice-president David Carlson, Exfoliators Australia’s Graeme Raper, Lumen Australia’s Keith Evans, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt and The Hobbyman’s Arthur Scheurer at the Premier Regional Business Awards nominations breakfast.Andrew Bolt said he was inspired by the award nominees.By Shaun Inguanzo
OUTSPOKEN newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt praised the creative streak of Greater Dandenong’s business awards nominations breakfast last week.
Mr Bolt was guest speaker at the Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce’s Premier Regional Business Awards nominations breakfast, and told the crowd he found the latest round of nominees to be ‘inspirational’.
The three nominees are perlite and vermiculite manufacturer Exfoliators Australia, The Hobbyman – arguably Dandenong’s best-known hobby store, and Lumen Australia, a supplier of wiring looms, systems and plastic components to car and other vehicle manufacturers.
Mr Bolt listened to each nominee speak before addressing the crowd on how the companies showed business could be just as creative, if not more than “so-called creative arts”.
“When you are spending eight hours a day at work you have to express yourself otherwise you will not be all there mentally,” he said.
The Hobbyman’s Arthur Scheurer said his business grew from a passion he had for model train sets.
Mr Scheurer said he had traded for 12 years in Dandenong and was known to many simply as ‘The Hobbyman’ instead of Arthur.
The business scored a coup when it was employed by Commonwealth Games organisers to use radio controlled cars as transports for javelin poles during Games’ javelin events this year.
Mr Scheurer said the idea was an innovation for javelin events and sped up the competition.
In the wake of the Games success, Mr Scheurer said The Hobbyman was only weeks away from finding out whether it would receive the same job at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Perlite manufacturer Graeme Raper from Exfoliators Australia told the audience how the ultra-light material could be used as a substitute for sand in making cement.
However, Mr Raper said the construction industry was not entirely sold on the idea because it was “ahead of its time”.
Lumen Australia managing director Keith Evans described his company’s innovative Blue Tooth products.
Blue Tooth is a wireless communication technology found in mobile phones, laptops, computers and other portable technologies.
While Mr Evans’ company did not invent Blue Tooth, he said Lumen was leading the way in product design and would build its own testing lab with a focus on integrating Blue Tooth into cars.
